Buns, Bigos, and Beauty. Polish Success Stories in Post-Brexit Britain
Ten years since Britain’s decision to leave the EU, the country is far from better off. Poland, on the other hand, is wealthier than ever. Some Polish nationals across Europe have packed up and flown back. So why are others staying? Three businesswomen in Greater Manchester, one a baker, one a chef, and one a beautician, recount their journeys, from arriving with neither money nor English to building thriving businesses in a country that, despite its political and economic turmoil, still offers a life they cannot recreate easily elsewhere.
Stockport Market, UK. Morning. I start my shift with 21-year-old Kuba, Poland-born, Warrington-raised. Today is Tłusty Czwartek (Fat Thursday), a Christian tradition that marks the last Thursday before Lent, giving license to guzzle sweet, fatty foods ahead of the 40-day fast. We lay out paper and wait for the delivery. Since 1 o’clock in the morning, the bakers have been forming, frying and filling 2,000 doughnuts, the top treat for Poles today. I write the flavours on the glass display case in chalk pen: rose marmalade, vanilla custard, apple and cinnamon, blackcurrant jam, Biscoff cream. It’s set to be a busy day.
Sticky Fingers, a bakery
owned by a young Polish couple, is one of many Polish businesses in Greater
Manchester that serve as hubs for Poles; some expect to be served in Polish, while
others visibly express joy at being able to order in their native tongue. Some
Polish customers have roots that stretch back to their grandfathers, who came
to Britain either during or directly after the Second World War. Other major
inflows of arrivals came post-2004 following the enlargement of the EU;
however, recent developments, including Brexit and Poland’s acceleration into
its ‘second Golden Age’, have reduced and even reversed this trend, making the approximate
number of Poles living in the UK today total to 700,000 – down from around 1
million in 2016 – according to the Office for National Statistics. This is not
isolated to the UK. In 2024, more Poles left Germany, Austria and Sweden than
arrived. Added to this list was the Netherlands in 2025.
Eye-grabbing headlines about the
‘Polish superpower overtaking Britain’, along with ugly far-right riots and
polarisation, have left me wondering about first-generation minorities who have
built lives in the country. I wanted to find out from Polish business owners
themselves why they decided to stay despite Brexit, despite Poland’s prosperity,
and despite Britain’s increasing uncertainty. It turns out, as usual, the
picture is more nuanced, belonging is more complex, and the answer to the
current political turmoil is not as straightforward as simply ‘going back’.
Meet the Businesswomen
Klaudyna
Business: Sticky Fingers
Location: Stockport
Arrival in the UK (Liverpool): 2017
Reason for moving: Limited financial backing and a curiosity about
horizons beyond Poland drove her to create different lives in Norway and
Germany. When travelling in Thailand with her husband, Adrian, they met a
Polish man living in the UK, who inspired them to start a new chapter in
Liverpool. The UK felt like an exciting, opportunity-filled destination. Adrian
drove lorries, and Klaudyna took a job as a pastry chef, learning on the job. They
moved to Stockport and opened a small bakery in the market in 2022. They then expanded to a three-floor cafe in November 2025.
Klaudyna in manner: sincere; in speech: amusing; in appearance:
dark hair, comfy colourful fleece. We speak at a small round table. Bare brick
walls, red-clay floor tiles. On the display counter lie rows of soft brioche
buns and a pyramid of cinnamon rolls. Croissant cups are filled with brownie,
banoffee cream, elderflower custard, and topped with fresh raspberries, banana
chips, and cherry jam. Behind the counter are racks of fresh sourdough. In an oven,
a large tray of brownie has started to distract every nostril in the building.
Aga
Business: Body Wax and Beauty
Location: Chorlton
Arrival in the UK (Manchester): 2006
Reason for moving: Felt restricted and longed for greater independence in
her small village in Silesia. After completing a degree in beauty therapy, she
struggled to find a job. Since her cousin was already in the UK, she decided to
try life there for a year with her boyfriend. Arrived speaking no English.
Worked as a hotel housekeeper and provided home manicures on the side.
Manchester felt like a huge, awe-inspiring world; instead of saving money, she
embraced big-city life. A fire at her workplace forced her to become
self-employed. She opened her own salon in 2019.
Aga in manner: feisty; in speech: direct; in appearance:
immaculate. We speak at a desk, either side of a half-moon LED nail lamp. There’s
a massage bed at the centre of the room and a trolley of products. On the walls
are rows of nail polish and framed awards from Treatwell, crowning the
business with 5/5-star ratings in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Wax melts, and music
plays.
Beata
Business: BeeRogi Café
Location: Ashton-under-Lyne
Arrival in the UK (Newcastle): 2005
Reason for moving: During her first year of a social pedagogy degree,
Poland joined the EU. Wanting to earn money, she decided to move abroad and
followed a friend who was already established in Newcastle. She arrived with
£100 in her pocket and no English. Worked in an Italian restaurant and moved up
the hospitality ladder. Following the end of a relationship, she moved to
Manchester. Opened a café in 2021 and relocated to Ashton-under-Lyne in January
2026.
Beata in manner: warm; in speech: professional; in appearance:
blunt bob, green eyes. We speak at a central wooden table, an open-plan kitchen
behind us. The spindle-back chairs, dressers, and floors, all wooden, give the
impression of a clean kitchen, the heart of someone’s home. Lace doilies are
framed on the walls, together with posters in Polish. Yellow and black are
predominant colours. Blackboards announce dishes in Polish and English: pierogi
ruskie, bigos, beef goulash, kotlet schabowy, apple pie, and cheesecake.
Safe Harbour
Building a life with a few pounds and little English would
be a challenge for anyone, and finding a co-national often helps to ease the bewilderment.
In this way, all three women’s migration stories followed a similar pattern: a
friend or family member had already paved the way, supported with documents,
accommodation, and jobs, and provided an initial safe harbour. But the need for
Polish connections largely ended there. They neither sought nor relied on
Polish institutions, and the existence of a well-established Polish community mattered
little. This contrasts sharply with the post-Second World War Polish arrivals
to Greater Manchester, whom scholars have described as a tight-knit and
patriotic group, keen to preserve their language, culture and national identity
in exile. The church also played an especially important role, with Polishness
and Catholicism often understood as inseparable. In those days, the only Poland
they had was the one reproduced in Manchester.
The women I interviewed arrived in a very different world.
Cheap flights and instant communication meant that maintaining ties to home or
culture no longer depend on Polish clubs or churches; their sense of identity
flows unobstructed across national borders. This shift reflects what the
anthropologist Arjun Appadurai describes as the emergence of ‘global
ethnoscapes’: deterritorialised urban worlds shaped by the constant movement of
people, information and ideas across geographical space. In a city like
Manchester, individuals may, in turn, take on a hyphenated identity, standing
between one or more cultures.
Aga’s experience illustrates this well. When the Polish
church was mentioned, she wrinkled her nose: “I am Catholic, I do believe in
God, but I do not necessarily believe in the church. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve
had really bad experiences, especially in the Manchester church. Everyone knows
everyone, and everyone’s looking at and judging and gossiping about everyone – it
was just like I was back in my village in Silesia!”
Klaudyna, the youngest interviewee, adds: “Our priority was
to integrate into local life and experience something new, rather than recreate
the community we had left behind. Ironically, Sticky Fingers has
unintentionally become a kind of community space itself. For some Polish people
who have struggled to fully integrate or who haven’t yet become confident in
English, our bakery offers a small reminder of home.”
For Beata in Newcastle, those around her were not Poles but
people from many different backgrounds, including Czechia, Italy, and Spain. It
was only much later, after opening her Polish café, that she began interacting
regularly with Polish customers and business owners. Like Sticky Fingers,
BeeRogi Café is a meaningful place for Poles, who can savour both
flavours and memories through food. The spaces serve two functions: as intermediaries
between the home and host country, and as cultural ambassadors for those
unfamiliar yet curious customers, providing a stand-in for travel or inspiration
to visit Poland proper.
Setting Sail
Despite firmly stating that being Polish does not define
them personally, our businesswomen found that their nationality became a
valuable niche in launching their businesses. For Klaudyna and Adrian, wider
political events had a particularly unexpected impact. Their market stall, Sticky
Fingers, was opened in February 2022, just as Russia launched its full-scale
invasion of Ukraine. The timing, Klaudyna believes, was significant: “There was
a lot of media attention on how Poland is helping Ukrainians, and so we were maybe
put in this position where we were seen as nice people, rather than immigrants
taking jobs. Everyone was really grateful and supportive. People wanted to get
to know us better and talk about the political situation.”
This striking observation marks a shift in
Britain’s perception of Polish migrants. During the years around the Brexit
referendum in 2016, the Polish minority suffered much of the brunt of Britain’s
grievances involving immigration, labour competition and pressure on public
services. By contrast, after February 2022, Poland’s international reputation
was gilded with praise for receiving millions of Ukrainian refugees and acting
as Ukraine’s strongest ally. While the Sticky Fingers owners had no
direct involvement in these geopolitical events, they inadvertently benefitted
from a more sympathetic image of Poland and Poles – one of generosity,
humanitarianism and a moral high ground.
Food became another way in which Polishness was attractive
to British audiences. Sticky Fingers’ first products were based on the
baking traditions Klaudyna and Adrian had grown up with, featuring rich cream
cakes, big doughnuts, and seasonal fruits. The British public was baffled. Renaming
a classic cake like Karpatka (a cake of whipped custard sandwiched between
layers of rugged choux pastry resembling the Carpathian mountains) to ‘Vanilla
Slice’ helped them get on board, with it now being their best-selling product.
Social media also accelerated this process. When an Instagram influencer happened upon their stall, they photographed the beautiful goods and encouraged the owners to create an account. Klaudyna uploaded a handful of photographs and waited. By the end of the day, they had 3,000 followers. The following morning, queues stretched through Stockport Market. The algorithm was a gift that kept on giving. Today, Sticky Fingers has more than 21,000 Instagram followers, with customers regularly travelling considerable distances after discovering the trendy bakery via Instagram. Their success is an example of how new businesses can reach customer bases far beyond their local community, without relying solely on word-of-mouth or long-established networks.
Aga’s realisation of her differences emerged within the beauty industry's standards and norms. She was shocked and did not like the way things worked. When she set up her own business, she could finally have her ‘beauty freedom’, that is, working in her own way. ‘They didn’t want me to wear gloves during pedicures! In Poland, the beauty industry is very strict. All tools need to be sterilised; you can only use one tool per client. And yet, in this country, there are no rules. At the start, I thought I was going to get ill. It was very difficult.’ Once she had her own freedom, she could see that her clients really saw the difference and appreciated her meticulous way of working. ‘English people really like the way I work. It’s just different.’
However, it was not all positive. While Polishness
could attract customers, it also generated expectations that co-nationals
should receive higher priority or privileges. “In my early years in the
UK, I tried to attract Polish clients to my beauty services because I did not
yet speak English, but that experience was not always positive,’ Aga recalled. ‘Some
clients expected discounts or informal arrangements simply because we shared
the same nationality.”
Beata provides a similar example: “It happens sometimes when
it's a busy Saturday morning in the café, and there is a big queue for bread.
Polish people are just walking in and starting to talk to me straight away at
the front of the queue. But, you know, there is a queue, there’s a system! They
don't understand that. They just come in here, do whatever they want and expect
to get everything now, fast, and first. Because they're Polish.”
Choppy Waters
Rewinding back to the 2000s, Britain appeared remarkably
open. Diversity was something Aga and Beata encountered daily, a stark contrast
to the Poland they had left behind: “When I came to England, to meet queer
people, Muslims, Indians, all types – it was shocking for me. I didn’t want the
same for my children. That’s why I stayed; it was my priority that they grow up
in a multicultural society and see diversity as normal. To respect everyone. In
Poland, the mentality is still the same as it was when I left, even today, with
all the developments. We love our Polish culture. We don’t want to change
anything.”
Beata remembers the sense of liberation vividly: “I was
absolutely in love with the way I felt in this country. You weren’t obligated
to look a certain way, no one was judging you, and there was less pressure to
meet others' expectations…I was paid £4.26 per hour*,
and I could afford so much. Suddenly, I wasn’t worrying about money every day.
It was amazing. In my head, it could only get better.”
Over time, however, the women’s love affair with their
adopted country dulled after witnessing the huge disappointment of Brexit in
2016. “We all thought that English people were accepting and honest.” Beata
sighs deeply. “But then, behind your back, Brexit happened. The trust was
definitely broken.”
Aga reached a similar conclusion. Occasionally, strangers
shouted at her for speaking Polish in public or accused her of “taking British
jobs”. More unsettling were conversations with long-standing clients after the
referendum: “Everyone was asking me, ‘Are you going back home? They're going to
send you home.’ And I'm like, ‘Why would I go back home? This is my home.’ It
was very confusing. You never know if you’re truly wanted here. Back in the
2000s, I thought this was how British people are: very open, very friendly.
Now, though, after being here for over 20 years, I think it’s just a mask. I
think that Brits pretend to be open.” She laughs. “Deep inside, they are just
the same as Polish people!”
Klaudyna is sceptical of the changing political narratives
surrounding Polish migration: “Before Brexit, Polish people were a convenient
target. There were a lot of us, so politicians could easily manipulate the
picture. Brexit happened, but many of the underlying problems remain. The cost
of living has increased, welfare dependency has grown, and everyday life has
become more expensive. When Poles were useful as Brexit scapegoats, they were
portrayed as a threat. Now that some far-right groups need “good immigrants”
to attack “bad immigrants”, Poles are moved into the category of the “model
minority”. I don’t see that as genuine acceptance, nor a healthy or honest way
to talk about immigration.”
These observations reveal the fickleness of public
narratives surrounding migrants, often with little connection to their own
behaviour. Before Brexit, Poles were frequently cast as symbols of uncontrolled
European migration. Following the end of free movement, attention shifted
towards irregular Channel crossings and immigration from outside Europe, while
Poland's response to the war in Ukraine and its prominent voice on European
defence have helped cultivate a more favourable image of the country. The
narratives have repositioned from framing Polish migrants as a “problem” to
examples of the “well-integrated” or “hard-working” minority. Yet, as Klaudyna
suggests, these hierarchical labels are no less political than the stereotypes
that came before them, highlighting how vulnerable migrant communities are to
the whims of politicians and media priorities, which continue to simplify nuanced
lives into convenient narratives.
Abandoning Ship?
A 2024 survey by Polish Business Link found that
although most Polish migrants viewed Brexit negatively, 43 per cent still
planned to remain in the UK, while only 15 per cent intended to return to
Poland permanently. One in three people is still uncertain about their future. Our
three businesswomen reflect that complexity. Aga speaks most openly about
feeling caught between two countries: “I have never felt at home in England. I
am proud to be Polish…But when people ask me whether I belong more to Poland or
England, I often say that I feel a little bit homeless. Maybe my perfect place
just doesn’t exist.”
Unlike when she emigrated, she now sees Poland as a country full
of opportunities, particularly for young people. She hopes her children will
pursue higher education there in the future to avoid the substantial debt that
British university graduates face. “If I had to choose to live in Poland next
year, I would say yes. My husband is different; he, 100 per cent, would say no,
he feels very at home in England.”
Compared with the optimism Beata and Klaudyna felt on
arrival, life now feels much more financially challenging and uncertain, particularly in terms of consistently meeting high operating costs, paying increasingly
large bills, and providing staff salaries is extremely stressful. Yet,
culturally speaking, they are both more at home in England. While Beata praises
Poland’s dramatic modernisation, she feels that attitudes haven’t transformed: “If
I were ever to come back to Poland, I don't know if I would handle the
mentality. Poland has moved forward, thank God. But the thinking is still
decades behind. People are still not very open to the fact that others will
look, behave, or think differently. I don't know, it's just something that’s
still too much for Poland.”
Klaudyna and Adrian don’t have a fixed destination: “We’ve
signed a 10-year lease on the cafe, so we’re not going anywhere for now. But we won’t be in
England forever. We don’t plan; we just go with the flow. We may move somewhere
else, who knows? But definitely not to Poland. I love it, but it’s just not me.
This idea of ‘going back’ isn’t a concept for us.”
Perhaps the most revealing insight is that none of the women
spoke about belonging in legal terms. Although Beata and Aga have lived longer
in Britain than in Poland, they have never applied for British citizenship,
despite being eligible for dual nationality. A passport would make little
difference to how they see themselves. At best, it would be a strategic decision
rather than an emotional one. Home, instead, has been built through
relationships, businesses and the routines of everyday life. Beata sees her
cafe as her second home and wants that to extend to her customers. As she puts
it: “My life here has been defined by a search for comfort and security. Now
that I’ve achieved it, I want to provide the same for my guests, to give them
that comfort, security, and happiness that I once craved.” In creating a place
where others feel welcome, she has also created one in which she herself
belongs.
Staying Afloat
In 2005, 2006 and 2017, these
women embarked upon a new life with little more than a handful of pounds and
the promise of a better life. None imagined that they would still be in Britain
years later, running successful businesses and contributing significantly to
the communities around them. Britain has changed profoundly since then. And so
has Poland. Their stories challenge the blinkered perceptions of migration, for
it is rarely an undertaking that revolves around a one-way ticket or a simple
‘departure and return’ trip. Yes, Brexit undoubtedly shook their confidence and
changed how they felt about their adopted country, yet it was not enough to
undo years spent painstakingly establishing businesses and networks. Equally,
Poland's remarkable economic transformation has not erased the reasons they
left or made returning an obvious choice. Instead, a more complicated picture
of contemporary migration emerges, with home no longer a place neatly nestled
between national borders, nor determined by passports or politics. While they
didn’t have all the answers to what lies ahead, these women have certainly learned
that, somewhere along the way, belonging can entail having, either in mind or
body or both, multiple parts of you in more than one country or even nowhere at
all.
