Federation of Poles letter to Prime Minister on Brexit no deal scenario

The Rt. Hon. Theresa May MP,
Prime Minister,
10 Downing Street,
London SW1A 2AA
27/07/2018
Dear Mrs. May,
The Federation, that has represented the Polish diaspora in the United Kingdom since its inception in 1946, as an NGO and now a charity, feels compelled to appeal to you directly on behalf of its 53 member organisations and the Polish people that they represent, regarding the recent turn in Brexit negotiations which emphasises the possibility of the “no deal” scenario.
The million plus Poles in the UK, representing a good third of the EU citizens currently living here, have nervously studied the developing Brexit situation since the referendum with growing trepidation due to its impact on their situation and status. They feel that they were overlooked and not involved in discussions which were to decide their future in the UK.
The Federation has noticed a general developing uneasiness, in particular, among the parents of the 200,000 or so children currently in education in the UK. This uncertainty could easily be alleviated, at a stroke, by a commitment to those Poles currently residing in the British Isles, ideally, by ring-fencing the status provisions in the draft Withdrawal Agreement.
The Federation notes that you have now taken the lead in the discussions with the remaining 27 countries in the EU and hopes that a good Brexit deal will be negotiated for the benefit of all the people living in the UK.
Yours sincerely
Taduesz K Stenzel
Chair of Trustees

Concerned UK Poles call for ring-fencing of their rights - Press Statement

This week the Federation of Poles in Great Britain sent a letter (attached) to the Prime Minister expressing concern over a Brexit “no deal” scenario and calling for safeguarding the rights already negotiated in the draft Withdrawal Agreement through parliamentary legislation.

There are nearly one million Polish citizens currently living in the UK following the accession of Poland to the European Union in 2004. Overwhelmingly these Polish citizens are UK taxpayers, making a substantial contribution to the British economy and to British society. This figure includes up to 200,000 Polish children, mostly born in the UK.


Poles make up one third of the total population of EU citizens in this country. The Brexit referendum in June 2016 undermined the secure future of Polish and other EU citizens in this country, even if they had earlier obtained permanent residence. As a result of prolonged negotiations between the UK and the EU, Polish citizens and their families were told by the Home Office that they had to reapply for their right to stay and work in the UK. They would be eligible for settled status if they had worked here for five years and pre-settled status if it was less. These applications would have to be submitted between Brexit day on March 29th 2019 and 30th July 2021 to enable these citizens to stay.


However, even this new lesser status would be made null and void if the current fears of a "no deal" scenario in March next year become reality due to a breakdown in negotiations. Would Poles still have the right to work? Would they still have access to the NHS? Would Polish children still have the right to attend school?


Consequently, the Federation of Poles, speaking on behalf of Poles in the UK, is urging the Prime Minister to commit her government to ring-fencing the rights of all EU citizens that have already been agreed and included in the draft Withdrawal Agreement and to do it before Brexit Day 29th March 2019 in case the “no deal” scenario looks inevitable.


The Federation of Poles in Great Britain is the most representative organisation of the Polish diaspora in this country. It was founded in 1946 as an umbrella organization to promote Polish culture and to represent the voice of all the major post-war Polish social, cultural and educational organizations in the UK and today it has 53 member-organizations, including the Polish Social and Cultural Association and the Polish Education Society. It currently has the status of a charitable incorporated organization (CIO).


“Hard working Polish families in the UK have been deeply anxious about their fate following the Brexit referendum but also they have been patient and trusting that the British government would keep to its promises that all EU citizens be allowed to stay. Now with the possibility of there being 'no deal, the Government must make that commitment a reality”, says Wiktor Moszczynski, author of "Hello, I'm Your Polish Neighbour" and also a Federation trustee.


For further information please contact Chair of Trustees, Tadeusz Stenzel tel. 01664 565200 – tadstenzel@gmail.com,

or Wiktor Moszczynski tel. 07786471833 – wikmos@gmail.com




Issued on behalf of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain C.I.O. 240 King Street, London W6 0RF Web: www.zpwb.org.uk, ,

Letter to Labour MPs on Parliamentary Debate on Polish Holocaust legislation

While I seriously regret the misguided decision by an over sensitive Polish Parliament in passing an amendment in March to its law on the Institute of National Remembrance which criminalizes certain aspects of the debate on the Holocaust in relation to “the Polish nation or the Polish state” and can understand the concerns it has raised in the international community, including in the British parliament, I would not want the subsequent parliamentary debate on June 5th to transform itself into a diatribe against the Polish nation. I should not want it to minimize the Polish nation’s heroic struggle against Nazi Germany including its valiant attempts to rescue many Jews from the Holocaust or to equate Poland’s new law with anti-Semitism or the overall description of “Holocaust denial”. The legislation stems from a perceived concern in Poland that their country was being depicted in Holocaust liter ature as being equally responsible as Germany for the Holocaust being carried out on what had been and is now Polish soil, but which at the time of the Final Solution was under German occupation. The Polish government rightfully claims that if Germany had not invaded Poland in 1939 there would have been no Holocaust.


Please remember that Poland was subjected to a level of murder, brutality and subjugation under German occupation that far surpassed what occupied Western European countries experienced. 3 million Polish non-Jews were murdered as well as 3 million Polish Jews, while a further 3 million Poles were taken for forced labour. In German occupied Poland uniquely any attempt to save or assist Jews was automatically punished by the execution of the whole family. Yet a whole industry was set up by the Polish Underground movement, involving churches, nunneries, children’s homes, factories, as well as individual Polish families, to save Jewish families and especially Jewish children from death. Thousands of Poles were executed or were tortured because of this activity. It is also important to be aware that the clandestine courts run by the Polish underground state condemned Poles to be executed as traitors for betraying Jews to the Germans. It was also the Polish government in exile which publicized the underground state’s reports on the death camps and the genocide of the Jewish people to an unbelieving public in the West. The official behaviour of the Polish state towards the Jews was not perfect, but it deserves approval, bearing in mind its precarious situation. There was no Vichy regime or Quisling government in Poland systematically betraying Jews to the Germans.

On the other hand, thousands of individuals Poles, for whatever motive, betrayed and blackmailed Jews, mocked their killing or helped to hunt them down in the forests. Others in Eastern Poland took a misguided revenge on innocent Jewish communities in remoter towns like Jedwabne after these towns had been “liberated” from a Soviet occupation which until then had been as brutal and murderous towards Poles as the Germans had been. The majority of Poles simply remained uncommitted as they struggled for their own survival under the Nazi German terror. All these facts are regrettably true, and Poland must live with the shameful consequences of these crimes as much as with a sense of pride in what its more heroic countrymen did. No sensible Pole denies these crimes occurred and neither does the new law deny it as it speaks only of the whole “nation” or the whole “state” being criticized. Under German occupation Polish official authorities, themselves clandestine and under constant threat of capture and death, were unable to fully prevent these crimes being carried out by their countrymen, even though many were executed as traitors.

However, if this issue is to be debated on June 5th with full sensitivity towards both Poles and Jews, without heaping overblown statements of condemnation against the Polish government and the Polish nation, MPs would be right to use that occasion to urge the Polish government to rescind this legislation. In place of an increasingly fruitful earlier dialogue and mutual re-examination between Polish and Jewish historians we now have a dialogue by megaphone which debases all the arguments, subjecting facts to self-serving emotions, which in turn will only encourage both anti-Semitism on the one hand and Polonophobia on the other. The Polish government must be given the breathing space to be able to repeal the controversial amendment voluntarily because it is in the best interests not only of the international dialogue on the Holocaust, but of Poland as well.

Also, the debate would be a useful occasion to remind the British public and the British media that the term “Polish death camps”, however innocently intended as a geographical description, is offensive to all Poles because of its unwritten implication that the death camps were set up or run by Poles.

I hope that, if you do choose to take part in this debate, you will seek to avoid a confrontational approach to the Polish government and and instead urge them to recognize the futility of replacing dialogue with legislation and to repeal the controversial legislation.
Yours sincerely
Wiktor Moszczynski
former Labour Councillor and parliamentary candidate

Hostile Environment for EU citizens same as for Windrush generation

Letter to Editor of "The Guardian"

Dear Sir,
I can fully understand the impact of the Home Office's hostile environment on the Windrush generation ("Rudd tells MPs: we were wrong" 17/4/16) especially when,with the passage of time, documentation which had never earlier been required disappears and suddenly elderly hard-working and often long retired British citizens are asked to account for everything they have done over the past 60 years.
This same hostile environment is now being visited on vulnerable EU citizens who have been here legally for several decades without any need to account for their activities other than they have been living and working here and bringing up families. Now, disregarding all their current rights as EU citizens at a time when the UK is still a member of the EU, many Poles and other EU citizens have been faced with internment in detention centres, deportations, their children's UK citizenship revoked and their right to free NHS treatment challenged. It is not always possible to have these measures reversed in time.
With the new system for registering settled status and temporary status under way senior Home Office staff have been promising us a "culture change" for EU citizens. I do not doubt their good intentions but I very much fear their earnest recognition of their current toxic work culture and negative attitude to foreign applicants is probably too late to prevent seasoned Home Office officials further down the line interpreting the complex byzantine immigration rules in their own way even when faced with the eventual terms set out in the Withdrawal Agreement.
Following the recent revelations about the treatment of former Commonwealth citizens I remain very sceptical.
Yours faithfully

Polish Saturday Schools in UK give proud Polish children a chance to prosper in UK

On 2nd April the Guardian printed an article headed "Polish schools in UK accused of links to far-right associates.

This is grossly unfair. Polish Saturday schools have a long and proud tradition in the UK ever since they were set up in the 1940s for children of Polish political emigres stranded here after the War. Currently there are over 150 such schools in the UK serving both the grandchildren and great children of those emigres as well as the new diaspora following Poland's entry into the EU. These schools vary in size and resources and they teach Polish children to have a pride in their parents' country of origin by learning the language, customs, history and geography, These schools respect the British attitude to tolerance of other minorities and prepare their pupils to live and prosper in a multicultural society, especially as older children are given the possibility to sit GCSE and A level exams and thus add an extra subject to their CV.

While accepting that currently the political polarisation within Poland has led to the radicalisation of some young Poles arriving recently in the UK this is not something that Saturday schools are in a position to monitor and to check the background of their children's parents. However the Polish Education Committee which has responsibility for 120 of these schools would be happy to accept any Home Office guidance on this issue as the lines between pride in your country of origin and a nationalist ideology can sometimes be blurred.

Jeremy Corbyn Passover Message upsets UK Poles

In his Passover Message in London today Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has sought to distance himself from anti-Semitic incidents within the Labour Party but has upset many members of the Polish community in the UK by referring to recent Polish legislation which has sought to criminalize the statement that Poland was responsible for the Holocaust in the same breath as the racist murder of a Jewish woman in Paris.

In this way he wrongly implied that the Polish government is a Holocaust denier and that the Polish nation was responsible for the Holocaust. Both propositions are manifestly not true and overlook the fact that it was the wartime Polish government which did its utmost to publicize in the West the mass killings and persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany, while its courageous underground leaders set up agencies to protect and save Jews in Poland at the same time as they sought to protect Poland's Christian population against persecution. Any attempt by a Pole to save a Jew would lead to the execution of the entire Polish family. Nobody denies that in the severity and privation of the German occupation individual Poles betrayed Jews and even hunted them in the forests, but that was not the response of the Polish nation as a whole, while betraying a Jew to the German authorities was punishable by a death sentence from the Polish underground. .
Yours faithfully,
Wiktor Moszczynski
Chairman,
Friends of Polish Veterans Association.
Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciol Polskich Weteranow (SPPW)
Author of "Hello, I'm Your Polish Neighbour"

Letter from the3million to Local Government Association

.

For the Attention of
Mr Mark Lloyd,
Chief Executive,
Local Government Association,
18 Smith Square,
Westminster,
London SW1P 3HZ

Dear Mr Mark Lloyd,


The3million is a grassroots organisation acting as the voice of more than three million EU27 citizens and their families in the UK, who are currently held in limbo as they await a final agreement between the EU and UK negotiators on their status after 29 March 2019.


We are writing to you as we think that local government may well be required to play a vital role in the registration process that would allow EU27 citizens and their families to continue to live, work and study in this country. We are aware that differences still remain over whether the registration process is to be merely declaratory, as demanded by the European Parliament, or obligatory, as an application for "settled status" (rather than mere registration), as currently proposed by the UK government. Either way, some form of registration is going to take place, with details resolved during the second phase of negotiations this Spring.


It seems difficult to imagine that with the best will in the world the Home Office will be able to successfully register more than three million citizens under the proposed online application proposals within a limited space of time. There will be a separate status for those here for more than 5 years and for those with less than 5 years of residence, including those likely to arrive during the proposed transition period between March 2019 and March 2021. We estimate that more than 3000 citizens would have to be processed each working day for the registration scheme to work. The Home Office has proposed to start the application scheme for "settled status" by the middle of this year on a voluntary basis, even though the final details of the scheme have not been defined or agreed as part of the Withdrawal Agreement and there would be no rights of appeal attached to this pre-Withdrawal Agreement ‘voluntary status’.


There have been consultations with many "user groups", including the3million, but they have largely been limited to the mechanics of how an online application system under the "settled status" proposal would work. Assurances have been given that an application for "settled status" will be based on checking identity, email number, residence (through HMRC and DWP records) and criminal records as well as security checks, and in the case of those residents here legally for more than 5 years, that there will be no questions about income. However there would be checks of recent long absences which would necessitate building up to 5 years again.


Home Office officials have told us they want to keep the application process firmly in their own hands via an online system, and to minimize non-online applications, for instance in case of "hard to reach" groups, even though it is clear that at least 5-10% of the 3 million or so EU nationals will not be IT literate. Cooperating with local councils has been considered by the Home Office, but they have stated their preference to recruit and train their own Home Office staff for this online application task. They are recruiting several hundreds more staff just for the online application period. However, the "hostile environment" created to counter illegal immigration has also impacted on "legal" migrants and has seen many EU27 citizens threatened with deportation. In meetings, different citizens groups’ representatives were assured that Home Office officials will undergo "a culture change", to dispel prejudice in their staff and allow for corrections and re-submission when required information has been omitted. Despite these promises we remain sceptical about the fairness, the efficiency and the supposed new groundswell of good will at the lower levels of the Home Office in this operation, and this scepticism is borne out with many examples of denial of access to justice, an understaffed and under-resourced Home Office and, on occasion, even non-compliance with court orders by the Home Office.


We have argued repeatedly that, to make it possible to register more than three million citizens in the space of two or so years, local government will need to be involved and indeed, to play a vital and leading role. We are convinced that registration of some 3 million citizens can only work if there is a light touch, local registration system purely based on residence and ID. Local government maintains electoral records, details of council taxpayers, register of births, deaths and marriages, social services records and school rolls and so is ideally placed to assist with information, where necessary regarding length of residency, relevant for the application and registration process. They also have registration processes in place and, with increased resources and capacity, could assist the Home Office with the process. This is also the view of many MPs and members of the House of Lords, as well as some Council leaders we have consulted.


With many EU27 citizens now regrettably wary of the Home Office, it is also not unlikely that many may resist going through an online application process where the pressing of a wrong button can cause you to be exposed to the "hostile environment". Others would not be informed properly about the process and the dire consequences if they fail to register within the required period. We are also worried about how difficult it could be to reach groups who may not be able to access an almost exclusively online system. On the other hand local government would be ideally placed to contact people they have on record and let them know about the need to register and can offer a local registration service rather than the proposed online application for "settled status" process.


We are convinced that, at the very least, the Home Office could engage local authorities in informing their own local EU27 residents of the need to apply for or register the proposed post-Brexit status. A useful opportunity would be as part of the electoral literature sent out by councils before the May local elections.The Home Office has been urged to explain clearly the current proposal for "settled status" and how this would differ from the current declaratory status, and the potentially serious consequences of non-application for "settled status" compared to the lesser consequences of simply registering an existing right.


Before we press this further with the U.K. government we would like to consult your organisation in order to obtain your view on these issues and to better understand how local authorities in England are preparing for the departure of the UK from the EU. The3million, as representatives of the EU27 citizens in the UK, would be happy to be considered as a consultative body and provide information where this may be helpful to you and the councils you represent. We would also urge you to consult the the3million publications and "Hostile Environment" pages for insight into our registration proposal (The Alternative Proposal) as can be found on the following link from our website: https://www.the3million.org.uk/publications.

We look forward to hearing from you or to discuss these matters further at a meeting,

Yours sincerely,

Wiktor Moszczynski
(former Borough Councillor)
Senior Adviser
The3million

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