Poland might leave the EU

[rhubarbcrumbles]

Awful for all the Polish workers here who may well have to leave the UK when Brexit happens and then, if they leave the EU, won't be able to work elsewhere in the EU either.

What an awful situation for them to be in, all that uncertainty.

Most Polish people I know over here speak better English than some English people.

I'm genuinely amazed that anyone thinks Poles don't integrate. In my part of the North, the Polish have been around for generations and are full and active members of the community. They celebrate both Polish and British traditions - and we are happy to celebrate both too.

Rhubarb - I disagree with you. The ones I know are generous, speak very good English, are the ones volunteering at local sports club etc,

Can you please differentiate between the different @rhubarbarkle and @RhubarbTea replies and mine - if we're all referred to as rhubarb it's very confusing working out who you are agreeing/disagreeing with!

Thanks
]

There might be a gender issue. The polish women I know speak good English and integrate well but I was talking to an ex colleague who was polish who said that some of the men didn’t, as they lived in house shares and they worked in environments where the other men were all polish. That would be interesting to consider.

marmitedreams Why are you assuming Brexit means EU immigrants living here now will be kicked out of the UK?! And as for patients being "from the EU" - perhaps originally yes, and now working and paying their taxes in the UK just the same you are. So why would there be fewer patients?

If anything there may well be more, as immigration in general is not going to stop. It will be part of trade deals with countries like India and China.

On a population level, EU migrants are more likely to be younger than average. This means that yes, they will be overrepresented in maternity services, but in most other health services they will use less care, not more. They will on the other hand be staffing quite a lot of the health service, as I do.

And no, they/we won't be leaving in droves just yet. My DDs and I have settled status and we are staying until it suits us to go. Realise this, marmite: the ones who go will be the ones the UK can least afford to lose.

I think they might threaten to do so but will not actually leave. They have too much to lose by leaving.

Polex.

@pointythings you are 100% right!
Without all of the polish staff at my local nhs hospital the place would be shut!

Our local community has a lot of Polish people, they've opened a couple of food shops in the town and one of the local schools has a significant percentage (approaching 50%) of pupils who are Polish.

Several countries want to leave, Poland isn't necessarily one of them. I don't think the EU will even exist in anything like the form or does now in 10 years

Nonsense. No other country wants to leave, only parts of England and Wales.

I love the polish, work with around 20 of them, all of them speak perfectly good English, great people and we have such a laugh, 2 of them i would consider close friends!

We also have alot of Romanians at our place, the older lot 40+ dont seem to want to bother learning English, but the younger ones do and generally speak it very well, can be a bit frustrating when you need to explain stuff to the older people

Get to the polish bakery. Its a whole new level.

Dare I say... Exit Pole?

Actually the correct term is "**Exitski"

Love the name suggestions for Pexit.

Surely though Poland and Hungary massively benefit financially from being in the EU so they are unlikely to leave voluntarily. Table here.

If I were a German taxpayer I might get a bit restive once the UK stops contributing to the budget though on these numbers.

Iv'e just spent two weeks in a large North London NHS hospital. Contrary to Mumsnet belief, it wasn't staffed largely by people from the EU especially Eastern Europe, in fact I think I only came across two. Most of the (may I say wonderful) nurses and doctors were Black or Indian.

That's black British obviously.

There might be a gender issue. The polish women I know speak good English and integrate well but I was talking to an ex colleague who was polish who said that some of the men didn’t, as they lived in house shares and they worked in environments where the other men were all polish

I think it is a known linguistic thing that language follows the female line only. So if a mass migration of only men (eg for work) takes place, then words from their language won’t get added to the existing one, and they won’t add new words. If women migrate too, then both languages mix. Mainly I think because the kids learn from their mum.

"I think it is a known linguistic thing that language follows the female line only."

Yes, but also that women are more likely to work in customer facing jobs while some men work in places like factories where interacting with the public is not as important. Women are often also attributed higher language learning skills than men.

"If I were a German taxpayer I might get a bit restive once the UK stops contributing to the budget though on these numbers."

I don't think Germans think as simply as that. The EU was created mainly to stop any more Franco-German wars and I think it's highly unlikely the Germans would ever give that up.