Anthony Browne

Invasion of the New Europeans

Immigrants from the East are honest and hard-working, says Anthony Browne, but many more have arrived than the government predicted. Should there be a limit?

issue 28 January 2006

Europe is one of the most divisive issues in British politics. But on one thing most Europhiles and Eurosceptics agree: that enlargement, letting those benighted former communist countries into the warm democracy-enhancing embrace of Brussels, was a good thing. Just about all respectable, right-thinking people feel that the UK should congratulate itself for opening its borders to Eastern European workers on 1 May 2004.

And enlargement certainly has been a Good Thing for the affluent property-owning professionals, as Rod Liddle observed on these pages last week. Importing a servant class of nannies, plumbers and waiters means that people like me can enjoy the lifestyle of a Victorian gentleman that we so clearly deserve.

The New Europeans are hard-working, presentable, well educated, and integrate so perfectly that they will disappear within a generation. I have admiration for their Mittel-European sophistication, a soft spot for their historical fatalism, and a weakness for their vodka-soaked parties.

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I adhere to a pretty iron-clad rule: not only do I avoid the bumper cars of social media, but I don’t read the comments after my columns. Many other journalists avidly lap up reader responses to their work, and there’s certainly something to be said for confronting detractors, thus learning to anticipate counter-arguments and to

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