Now melting pot Britain has record 1million Poles
THE number of Polish citizens living in Britain has passed one million for the first time.
Some 1,000,200 people from the Eastern European country have set up home in the UK, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
And nearly all of them have come since Tony Blair’s government threw open Britain’s borders to the Eastern Bloc in 2004.
Back then, there were only 69,000 Poles residing in the UK. Now they have overtaken Indians, the Irish and former colonies by having the largest foreign community in Britain.
It means Poles now account for around one in six of the country’s 6million non-UK nationals.
The number of Polish passport holders – as opposed to those born there – jumped by 86,000 last year.
The ONS report once again signalled the end of the legacy of migration from the days of the British Empire. Poland was followed by India (362,000), the
‘Lower paid employment’
Republic of Ireland (335,000), Romania (328,000) and Italy (233,000). There were 833,000 Indian-born residents in the UK – but 57 per cent have taken British citizenship.
The ONS report said: ‘This reflects that EU nationals currently have the freedom of movement between EU countries, whereas for non-EU nationals there is an incentive to acquire British nationality. This may also reflect the length of time that individuals have lived in the UK and the numbers born to UK nationals living abroad.’
Britain was a refuge of the Polish government-in- exile and free Poles during the Second World War and the Communist era. The Polish community is now made up of many descendants of the wartime and anti-communist exiles who ‘all equally contribute to Britain’s culture, society, and economy’, the Polish Embassy said.
Lord Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘The Poles generally have a good reputation and are welcome but most of them are in lower paid employment. This means they are not adding to GDP per head but are adding to the population on this crowded island. If one effect of Brexit is to reduce the influx from Europe that will be a step forward.’
About one in 11 UK residents has foreign nationality. The number rose from 5.6million in 2015 to 6million last year. Foreign-born citizens increased by more than half a million from 8.6million to 9.2million – making up one in seven of the population. The British population is about 65million.
The number of EU nationals living in Britain was 3.6million, more than doubling since Poland and seven other former Eastern Bloc countries joined the European Union in 2004. The number of non-EU nationals has remained stable at around 2.4million.
Separate figures showed record numbers of babies were born to foreign mothers last year – and in some areas it was as high as three children in four. In the North-West London borough of Brent, the proportion was 76 per cent, while in Newham, East London, it was 75.7 per cent.
In 2016, 28.2 per cent of babies were born to mothers born outside Britain, up from 27.5 per cent in 2015. At the start of the 1990s, the level was under 12 per cent. ONS data show there were 196,254 births to foreign mothers out of a total of 696,271 babies born last year. The rise in babies with mothers born abroad has partly come because fertility rates among the rising numbers of immigrants are higher than those of British-born women.