The beginning of the end of Britain’s biggest episode of migration

THE windows of the Biedronka Polish supermarket in Peterborough are plastered with posters for local events: a Polish “power disco”, a radio festival and a family fun day. On the noticeboard inside hang advertisements for Polish car services, flats for rent and jobs. The city has one of Britain’s fastest-growing populations of European migrants. But next to the poster for “Golden Clinic”, a Polish beauty salon, is a more ominous message. “Being you is not a crime. Targeting you is,” reads a sign from Cambridgeshire Police, encouraging people to report hate crimes.

Before Britain opened its borders and job market to the citizens of eight eastern European countries in 2004, its Office for National Statistics predicted that 5,000-13,000 migrants would come each year. In the end, in the first decade 1.5m arrived, in what by some measures was the single biggest inflow of people in Britain’s history. Poles are now the country’s largest foreign-born community. And a new generation is blooming: last year Polish-born mothers gave birth to 22,382 babies in England and Wales, more than any other foreign group.