In many ways things are going very well for Agie & Katie, a traditional Polish restaurant in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent.
It was named West Midlands restaurant of the year in 2019 and then a few months ago it won a Good Food award to go with its prestigious TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice rating. Things were going so well that in January the restaurant’s eponymous founders considered buying a food truck to take their pierogi – traditional filled dumplings – to a wider customer base. But then came the virus and lockdown.
With jobs furloughed or lost, like tens of thousands of Polish people living in the UK, Agie Biernat, the restaurant’s co-founder, returned to her native country, only to find herself unable to get back to the UK until the air corridor opened on 10 July.
Now she is back in Britain, but carefully watching the news to see if Poland will join the likes of France and Spain on the list of countries that the UK government says are no longer exempt from the 14-day quarantine regulations, and stop Polish workers returning home for family holidays. “It won’t be a surprise for us if they put [Poland] on the list,” Biernat said. “We are expecting it. Many Polish people have chosen to stay here because they cannot afford not to work for 14 days. We employ five Polish people and one Hungarian. One of our staff is supposed to go to Poland on the 20th of August but I don’t think she will go now.”
The omens certainly don’t look good. On Friday there were 832 confirmed new cases of Covid-19 in Poland, up from 267 on 14 July. While Poland is on the list of countries exempt from quarantine measures, the Foreign Office has generally advised against all non-essential international travel.
But any move to compel Polish people travelling to the UK to quarantine threatens to play havoc with key British industries.
It is estimated that more than 800,000 people living in the UK were born in Poland – the second largest immigrant group in the UK after those who were born in India.
And many of these Polish people are currently abroad, back in Poland. “When the summer comes, about 60% of Polish people go back to Poland to visit families,” Biernat explained.
“This year it has changed a little bit because of the lockdown. If someone has been going to Poland they’ve gone for a few weeks because they haven’t been working so they could stay longer.”
There are many industries that will be hit if returning Polish workers soon have to self-isolate. “Stoke-on-Trent is full of warehouses – we have TK Maxx, we have New Look, we have Asda,” Biernat said. “I think 40% of the warehouse workers here are Polish, so it will have a huge impact.”
As the restaurant, which has had to reduce its tables from 12 to five because of social distancing rules, was preparing for another busy day yesterday morning, Biernat was being messaged on Facebook by Polish friends trying to get back to the UK. Some had been returning through France and were already facing up to the reality of 14 days of self-isolation.
“I have so many friends still in Poland, and when they come back they will have to quarantine,” she predicted. Having been able to shuttle back and forth between the two countries for years, the virus is now forcing them, like hundreds of thousands of other Polish people, to choose between their native country and the UK. “We would love to go back, maybe for Christmas,” Biernat said. “But for now we won’t risk it.”
• This article was amended on 16 August 2020 to reflect that while the Foreign Office has generally advised against all non-essential international travel, Poland is currently on the UK’s list of countries exempt from quarantine measures.
