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Articles

Vol. 58 No. 5 (2025): Prawo i Więź nr 5 (58) 2025

The Campaign of British Trade Unions to Oppose the Polish Resettlement Act of 1947.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36128/dsgwh145
Submitted
16 September 2025
Published
18-11-2025

Abstract

This article examines how British trade unions organised a coordinated, albeit unsuccessful campaign to oppose both the establishment of the Polish Resettlement Corps in March 1946 and the passing of its accompanying piece of legislation, the Polish Resettlement Act, the following year. Perturbed at the influx to Britain of well over 100,000 Polish soldiers who had fought for Allied forces during the Second World War, many organised labour movements viewed these Poles as foreign competition for British homes, jobs and resources, especially during a period of post-war rationing. The fact that the vast majority of these trade unions were strongly left-wing and led by admirers of the Soviet Union made them not only highly sceptical of Polish soldiers’ claims of being unable to return to Poland fearing communist persecution but also led them to promote communist propaganda by labelling the Polish 2nd Corps, led by Gen. Władysław Anders, as a quasi-fascist pro-German army and a fifth column of Polish reactionaries posing a great danger to Britain. By focusing on a selection of archival documents from 1945-1946, the article demonstrates not only how these trade unions engaged in intense lobbying of the British government to prevent Poles from settling in post-war Britain, but also how they attempted to appeal to the broader population through rhetoric based on xenophobia, Soviet propaganda and even anti-Catholicism.

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