While Britain and the EU are still negotiating a post-Brexit agreement, hundreds of thousands of Poles have filed for permanent residence in the United Kingdom.
British authorities have approved over 80 percent of those applying for permanent residency as they had been living in the UK for over five years. Only 18 percent of applicants had not been in the UK for 5 years, and they will be awarded temporary status which will automatically be converted to permanent status when they reside in the country for five years.
Most of those deciding to stay are the generation that arrived in Britain immediately following Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004.
Those were the days of 20 percent unemployment in Poland when those who did find work were likely earning just $400 dollars per month on a temporary contract. At the time, it was possible to earn far more working on a building site or as a dishwasher in the UK. Filip Adamczyk Poles line up to cast their votes at the Polish Embassy in London during the last parliamentary election in 2019. It remains unclear — just weeks ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period — what the relationship between Britain and the EU for the years ahead might look like. However, what is clear is that from the beginning of 2021, EU citizens will lose their automatic right to live and work in the UK and their status will be the same as of all other migrants.
The decision on whether a person will be able to obtain the right to permanent residence will depend on a points scale which will assess education levels, knowledge of the English language, and the age of an applicant.
People applying to work in the UK will have to show they have a contract worth at least £26,500 per annum. This is a level of pay which is nearly impossible to attain for people working in restaurants, hotels, care homes, or construction companies.
That pay threshold requirement means mass migration for manual work will, unless the regulations change, has mostly come to an end.
