Well if they're not here...

4 years ago I worked in a sausage and pie making factory near Tunbridge Wells, it was quite an experience, very hard work but rewarding and it also introduced me to a phenomenon that had passed me by in previous jobs, that of Polish migrant workers.
They were very hard workers too, almost universally cheerful and keen to work all the hours God sends because the money they were getting was so much better than they could earn at home. So they shared as many to a flat as they could get in, lived cheaply and sent a lot of money home. Because they were (mostly) Roman Catholics they also didn't have the hangups over touching pig products (pork would be stretching it a bit, lets just say that in a sausage you get what you pay for) that certain other religious groups might have, nor did they seem to be keen suicide bombers either (just saying).
So when Phil Woolas the Immigration Minister claimed only half of them remained in the UK from the 1.5 million that came across I was a bit surprised as I still run into groups of them on a regular basis doing agency work where I work.
Turns out however that for all the claims of Phil Woolas, if they are leaving, they aren't going home.

BBC.

A Polish expert on migration says claims that half of all Polish immigrants to Britain have returned home are not true.

The Migration Policy Institute had said 1.5m people from new EU states, mostly Poles, had come to the UK since 2004 and that more than half had now left.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas said only about 700,000 remained.

But Prof Krystyna Iglicka, of Warsaw's Centre for International Affairs, said Poland saw no evidence of this.

"We do not see them here," she said of the reported returned immigrants.

Prof Iglicka told the BBC's Today programme that Polish research indicated the contrary. Official estimates for Poles working abroad rose consistently until 2008, when they fell only very slightly.

"From our side this is not true," she said. "We do not see them here; we do not see them in any other different countries."

Prof Iglicka also cited real figures for the numbers of the returning Poles who had registered at their local labour offices.

She said they would have to do this to transfer any benefits earned abroad, or to claim benefit in Poland. The figures for 2008 were just 22,000 for the whole country.

Prof Iglicka's own estimate is that about a million Polish migrants are still in Britain.

I wonder how many migrants remain migrants either, a lot have married UK citizens and naturalised too, might it just be that a Labour Minister is fudging the truth to try and justify his parties claims that they have immigration under control?
As I've pointed out though, the Poles aren't the problem, we could certainly do with more migrants of their stripe, they fit in well and integrate, something the other 90% od migrants seem to have a problem with. Yes, that's right, the Poles for all the publicity only made up 10% of migrants to the UK

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said Mr Woolas's estimate was "in the right ball park" but the focus on Poles was a "distraction from the wider challenges of mass immigration".

"East Europeans as a whole - A8s - account for only 10% of the total foreign-born population of the UK," he said.

 We could do with more Poles here, we could do with any immigrants who are prepared to work hard, pay their way and integrate with our society. The problems we have is that successive governments have fallen for the myth of multiculturalism, whereby immigrants have been allowed not to integrate and become increasingly isolated from mainstream society. That which divides us cannot unite us and in the end fractures society to the point that the BNP can make headway in politics.

Personally I hope the Poles choose to stay.