In October, 36,000 Polish nationals living in Britain queued to vote in Polish parliamentary elections. Poles living abroad played a key role in the downfall of the Eurosceptic and traditionalist right-wing coalition led by Jarosław Kaczyński, replacing it with the economically and more socially liberal, Civic Platform, led by Donald Tusk.
In the previous parliamentary elections, in September 2005, 2,500 Poles living in the UK turned out to vote in London and Edinburgh. This year turnout increased fourteen-fold, with twenty polling stations in seventeen cities (including Manchester and Cambridge). The sharp increase in turnout, as well as the location of polling stations, reflects the rapid increase in immigration since EU accession and the extent to which the Polish community has dispersed across the UK, with no region excluded.
What are the implications for UK politics? Next May’s council elections are likely to be tough for Labour. But unlike in UK parliamentary elections, EU citizens, including the 600,000 or so Poles living in the UK have the right to vote. In hundreds of council seats across the UK, the Polish vote could, if mobilised have a huge impact on the outcome. In Leeds, Labour needs to win back six seats to take control of the council; in London, Ken Livingstone needs to appeal to the increasingly diverse base of support that has secured his two victories to date.
We know that these Polish voters are predominantly young, well-educated, ambitious and economically mobile. The party that they supported in great numbers this year is economically liberal, socially liberal and pro-European. They are outward looking and confident about Poland’s future – keen to play a positive role in the international community.
But to a large extent support for Civic Platform represented a coalition keen to oust an increasingly anti-Europe and socially divisive prime minister. Some of this bodes well for Labour’s chances winning Poles’ votes, but turnout and voting behaviour cannot be taken for granted.
So how can Labour appeal to Polish voters? The party has a strong message, but not one that we are articulating well enough. It was Labour who opened up jobs in the UK to Polish workers and is investing in public services that the migrant workforce benefits from; and trade unions are ensuring that Polish workers know their rights in the workplace. It was also Labour who presided over the post-war integration of thousands of Polish soldiers who remained in the UK unable to return to Soviet-dominated Poland – stressing this would be important to Poles who otherwise associate the Tories, and especially Thatcher, with helping Poland out during the Cold War. And Labour believes and recognises the benefits of diverse communities, a dynamic labour market and the important contribution that Polish workers have made to our economy and communities. Our challenge now is to get this message out to voters.
Yet no-one who has been campaigning for Labour over the last few years has been immune to the complaints about unchecked immigration, foreign workers ‘taking our jobs and houses’, and the pressure on our schools, GP surgeries and other public services. Labour should stress that the new immigrants are predominantly young and healthy and a great majority of them are here only temporarily. But we must also face up to the reality that in the short run there are winners and losers from immigration. The losers are often those people who Labour should never lose sight of, the low-skilled, low-paid working class communities that many of us represent. The corollary of lower prices and increased choice in the service and construction sectors, is the downward pressure on wages and reduced job security for those already working in those industries. But the solution to these challenges, is not to blame the new wave of migrant labour nor to close our borders. As progressives, and as egalitarians, we must work harder than ever to ensure that we are constantly training British workers so that they can access more skilled employment, benefit from the new industries and exciting opportunities generated through ten years of economic growth and prosperity. At the same time, we must continue to work with our trade unions to ensure that migrant workers are not exploited and used to undercut British workers, building up tensions in the workplace and in our communities.
If we do this, we will win the political argument as well as the economic one.