Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych - 01 September 2016: Poland-UK top diplomats talks about anti-Polish attacks after Brexit referendum

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski met with his British counterpart Boris Johnson to talk about last months' attacks on Poles living in the UK after Brexit referendum. The two discussed during a session of the OSCE foreign ministers in Potsdam on September 1. The meeting, which stressed common challenges for the security of the OSCE region and the engagement of the Organisation in crisis and conflict management, and in the fight against terrorism, led Minister Johnson to promise to get to the bottom of the issue. The British declared that anti-immigrant actions will no longer be tolerated in the UK, while reaffirming to do everything to protect Poles and other foreign communities living in the UK.

As the result of the meeting, an educational campaign is going to be launched in the UK so as to increase people awareness that "Brexit does not mean throwing immigrants out from the country" the Polish Minister said.

A confrontation was more necessary than ever after reiteration of violence against Polish community of the UK: in the past weekend, a group of young attacked two Poles in Harlow, England, with one of them died from consequences of injuries. First hate incidents occurred in the very aftermath of Brexit referendum of June 23. In June 26 and 27 a series of cases have been reported by the British Police such as racist graffiti on the plaque of the Polish Cultural Association in London and the words "Leave the EU, no more Polish vermin", in both English and Polish, delivered in the letter boxes of Polish families and distributed outside primary schools in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Abuses on social media have also been recorded.

Immigration has been one of the strong points of the leave-side campaign: "an image of migrants and refugees lining up to get into Europe - never mind that it was taken in Slovenia and not Cornwall or Bristol" Fatma Tanis wrote on PRI on June 27. These episodes demonstrate the dangerousness of shaping public opinion and people's minds through nonsense unfounded distortion of the reality. Should also be noted, however, that attacks only hit peripheries and "less cosmopolitan" suburbs. According to Dunin-Wascowicz, a researcher at the London School of Economics, the atmosphere in London is far better as Mayor Sadiq Khan said immigrants remain welcome in the city.

The meeting of the two diplomats is intended to be a significant step to avoid an uncontrolled escalation of violence against Polish immigrant in the UK.