Dear Sir
I always thought that Tony Blair's decision to open up the UK labour market to Poles and other EU citizens from central and eastern Europe was a brave and positive decision justified by the needs of a booming UK economy and an early claim on the cream of the crop of entrepreneurial young EU citizens, who would inevitably have come to the UK in any case, under the terms of the Nice Treaty, over the next 7 years.
On the day it was announced in the Commons in 2004 by Home Secretary David Blunkett, I was invited by the BBC, as the Federation of Poles in GB spokesman, to come to the studio, listen to the speech and then comment on it. I was genuinely but pleasantly surprised by the generosity of the Blair government's initiative, and commended its courage, as I could see its advantage to both the UK and the Polish economy, and to cementing better UK-Polish relations in the future. However, I was concerned by the vague sanctions over enforcing the Worker Registration Scheme and strongly urged that it should be linked to obtaining a National Insurance number, to be effective.
I could also foresee the dangers stemming from the competitiveness of keen industrious Eastern European workers in the scramble for jobs, and I made some possibly undiplomatic public comments about young unemployed British jobseekers having to get up earlier in the morning.
I also commented in my later report to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Poland on the lack of preparation for making such a decision, because the migrants arrived as an elemental force, in uneven patches dotted around the country, against a background of highly inaccurate migration forecasts, which failed to prepare for the need to budget for interpreters and other support services in hospitals, local authorities, the law courts, employment agencies and other branches of industry and public services. As a result, a large number of smaller towns like Redditch, Peterborough, Luton and Boston, became culturally overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, while lacking the resources to cope with the new arrivals, despite the boost to the local economy. This lack of preparation and the uneven spread was an important contribution to the resentment against the new arrivals, encouraged by the right wing press, which eventually led to the fateful Brexit campaign.
Wiktor Moszczynski
88 Isambard Court, Paddlers Avenue, Brentford, TW8 8FP
(copy of letter sent to the i paper
