The British are fleeing to Poland, the land they once mocked.
Not long ago, the British mocked us. Today, they are fleeing to the Vistula.
More and more Britons are settling on the Vistula. What are they looking for and what do they find? — I came for a good life and I have it — says Alistair Mckeown. He has lived in Poland for years and understands why our country has started to attract his countrymen. — Great Britain has also changed over these 25 years, only in the opposite direction — he says.
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London is big. Beautiful. Ugly. Wonderful. Terrible. London has the best music and people from all over the world. London is the center of everything. Phil takes the subway in a crowd of people of all skin colors and from all cultures, who have the same headphones in their ears and the same phones in their pockets. There is hope for a beautiful tomorrow in London. And that if you work hard, if you all work hard, you will get out of this crowd of aspirants and become someone. Everyone thinks so. It is 2016. None of Phil's friends believe in Brexit. And even if it happens, it's supposed to be better, right?
Warsaw is small, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, simultaneously wonderful and terrible. Everyone is white. You don't feel like you can conquer the world here. But you feel comfortable. It is 2026. Phil is 35 years old. He has lived in Warsaw for three years. For now, he is not returning to the Isles.
1.
"20 years ago, Poles came to the UK in search of a better life. Today, thousands of Britons are choosing the opposite direction" — writes the British newspaper "Daily Mail". The number of Britons in Poland has more than tripled in recent years. Today, 185,000 of them live here.
— The reasons? It's cheap, safe, and if you came from one of the cool countries, and the UK is quite high on that list, people will want to befriend you — says Mark, who worked in Krakow's bars for two years and then decided to try corporate life. — I had no experience, but my English was enough to become a recruiter in a large company. We hire people from many countries, everyone speaks English. Practically everyone speaks at least a basic level. I come from a working-class background, and in England, this class system is an important part of the social structure. My parents and grandparents knew their place in society and knew they couldn't change it much. Besides, they wouldn't want to, they have their own ethos, their own worldview. This is starting to change, but traditionally, social class still largely defines who you are and what your future is. The deepening political chaos doesn't help. I'm center-left, my father and grandfather participated in strikes, but I don't know what my country is about anymore. I didn't go to university, which closed many doors for me. My mistake. But here I can do much more. I have a Polish fiancée. I don't know what will happen in the future, I would like to return to England someday, but for now, I'm not thinking about it. For now, I'm here.
2.
— I got up at half past two in the morning, was in Warsaw by five, and arrived in Silesia at 11 — says Alistair Mckeown. A Scotsman by birth, raised in England, for the last thirty-odd years he has worked mainly in the music industry: he was a tour manager for stars, working with, among others, the Spice Girls and Morcheeba. He has lived in Łódź for 25 years, ran restaurants and bars, but ultimately always ended up back in music. Today, he is a driver and tour manager working for a major artist transport company. Over the years — he says — both Poland and Great Britain have changed a lot.
— It was the year 2000, I was on tour with MTV. We were traveling around Europe for three months, until we finally reached Poland. I had never been here before. MTV was just entering Poland, we had a big party at Sfinks in Sopot. I met Ewa, who later became my wife. I returned to London, but I was drawn back. Finally, I told my parents: I'm moving to Poland. "Where?! Why?!" My first real contact with Poland was Łódź. Christmas, 2000. Winter, fog, gray, sad. "Jesus, what is this?!" Gloomy buildings, a small apartment in a block, hot as hell from the radiators. I wanted to get to know the city, so I walked a lot. Everything was closed. Closed factories, shops with boarded-up windows, crumbling tenement houses, defunct businesses, the old Łódź Fabryczna station. A dying city, I would never have said that Łódź would recover from this.
Alistair taught some English, then brought British DJs to Łódź clubs, booked artists for larger concerts and festivals. For several years he lived in Kyiv, organizing concerts for, among others, Paul McCartney and Elton John.
— It was 2007, 2008 — he recalls. — After two years in Kyiv, we returned to Łódź. Even then, I was rubbing my eyes a bit, because I saw how much had changed. Today? Łódź is a great, modern, comfortable city to live in. I don't intend to move from here anymore. Great Britain has also changed over these 25 years, only in the opposite direction — he sighs. — It's so expensive that even if I wanted to, I would have trouble returning to England. A few weeks ago, I was in Newcastle visiting my parents. I go into a shop, look at the shelves and say: how much?!
Alistair spent his childhood in Newcastle, many of his friends moved to the south of the country for work. Now they are returning.
— Immigrants are taking jobs, the streets have changed. People are increasingly irritated. They pay high taxes, but their situation is not changing much, and if it is, it's for the worse. Cities are much less safe, it's harder to find work, everything is getting more expensive. An increasingly common emotion is: you are accepting too many immigrants, you are spending too much money on them, while completely neglecting the situation in the country. Prime ministers change every five minutes, and each seems exactly the same as the others. People have had enough of this. The country is run by out-of-touch people whose children go to private schools and who are separated by a huge economic gap from the rest of the citizens and their daily problems. And people see this.
— And they vote for the far right?
— It's not the far right. It's people who say: you are not dealing with what you should be. If so many people say they don't feel safe in their own country, that it's getting harder for them financially, and the political mainstream says that's not true, what are they supposed to do? They will vote for those who say: we see your problems. Years ago, if you exceeded the speed limit, you paid a fine of 20-30 pounds. Today: several hundred. There is nothing wrong with helping immigrants, weaker people. But citizens also have the right to demand information: what is being done, for how much, what is the intended outcome? Who should be the priority here? I prefer Poland. I've lived here for 25 years and haven't taken a penny from the state. I didn't come here for help. I came for a good life and I have it.
3.
— It's fascinating how much it has changed — says Taryn Adams, a Welsh journalist living in Warsaw. — This shift from xenophobia towards Poles to seeing Poland as a new European utopia. 20 years ago, the British right wing said: bad Poles from this godforsaken Eastern Europe have come here, they are taking jobs, pushing their way in, and eating swans from park ponds. Stirring up fear of foreigners is cyclical. Today, they hold Poland up as an example: it's great because it's white and traditional. The latter is not entirely true for cities like Warsaw. The Polish provinces, however, are traditional, but the British know nothing about them. I lived in the Polish countryside, it's a completely different reality, I'm not sure if people from the UK would find it easy to adapt there.
According to Taryn, the story of the Polish paradise is particularly popular on the British internet among those white working-class men who fear immigrants the most. — There is a large propaganda machine operating on our internet that holds Poland up as an example. But it presents a distorted image of it, the kind that the Polish right wing tries to build. For example, Dominik Tarczyński, a new Polish friend of Tommy Robinson.
Tarczyński readily appears in right-wing media in Great Britain and the USA. Last year, he invited Robinson — a favorite of the English far-right, imprisoned five times — to the Independence March. Earlier, he was a guest at the Unite the Kingdom march in London organized by Robinson. "We are reclaiming our Christian Europe" — he said then. "We are reclaiming the continent because it is our home. I love this crowd. I love being European."
— This is how an image of Poland is built as a right-wing utopia. An untrue image, painted by right-wingers from both countries. Yes — Poland is much less culturally diverse than Great Britain, but it is changing a lot. I grew up in the 2000s. It was a time when multiculturalism was probably most valued here. The nations forming the UK seemed closest to each other then. Diversity was celebrated: cultural, religious, racial. We are all together and because of that, we are better.
— What has changed?
— Many people had no idea about the economic consequences of Brexit. Since leaving the EU, Great Britain has been in a worse and worse state. Public services, infrastructure — everything has deteriorated. Many people were fed disinformation, minorities were presented as a threat. This is a British, or rather English, tradition. Similar reactions occurred with the Windrush generation, i.e., people who arrived in Great Britain from former British colonies in the Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s.
— In 1968, Enoch Powell, a Conservative Party politician, gave his famous "Rivers Of Blood" speech, warning against accepting immigrants — I interject. — Today, it is considered a classic of xenophobia. For example, Eric Clapton, who supported Powell at the time, had to explain himself for years.
— Today's right wing says similar things. Before Brexit, they said it about Poles, now they hold you up as an example. Utopias do not exist. Poles have a different mentality, they are very direct, I myself, when I return to the Isles, am considered a bit unpleasant. I like this Polish directness, but it's not for everyone. Similarly, the Polish work ethic — you work a lot and hard, you constantly aspire, you want more. In Poland, it's like this: you have to cope, and no one will beat around the bush.
4.
— I work in the video game industry and I feel great — says Phil. — I'm learning to speak Polish, but in fact, I don't have to, because everyone speaks English, and girls in Poland love foreigners. Or at least those from the West. I am a classic child of the 90s. Liberal, raised on multiculturalism and Cool Britannia.
This is how young, world-conquering British pop culture was described in the mid-1990s, with its context of an open and multicultural society. — But you know what? "Cool Britannia" started to sound cheesy as early as the early 2000s. Something like "fajna Polska" (cool Poland) in your country. Except that in your country it was purely political, while in ours, politics is often sold in a pop culture package. Politics is like an underground current of culture. I don't think Great Britain is in as much trouble as the right-wingers try to sell it. They exaggerate problems just to say: you have to vote for us, because otherwise, it's the end of the world. And then they will become similar to their predecessors. It has always been like this. However, the facts are: there has been gigantic political chaos in the UK since Brexit. A lot of immigrants are coming here, more than people would like, and politicians don't want to listen to them. Only the right-wingers listen and use it for their own benefit. The correct way to frame the problem would be: what to do to avoid becoming a closed fortress? Not to discriminate against people who are already here. And at the same time, not to call everyone who is afraid of foreigners a racist and punish them, because this increases the number of angry men who start fantasizing about civil war. Poland is neither the country that the right wing tried to make you 20 years ago, writing that you eat pigeons and are all alcoholics, nor the one they are trying to make you today: a white bastion of Christian fundamentalists. Warsaw is a multicultural city, after all! And I, as a nice guest with a British accent and a cool job, live here like a king.
Source: Newsweek Polska 38/2026
