The campaign was designed to remind Britons of the blood shed by Polish soldiers fighting for the British armed forces during the Second World War, as well as to combat the negative attitudes and stereotypes of migrants, The Guardian reports.
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Earlier this month official figures revealed the number of EU migrants working in the UK had topped two million for the first time.
In a counter event between Wednesday and Friday, thousands of Poles were meant to donate blood in a drive to show that Polish immigrants are an integral part of British society, the organisers of the blood donation said.
It said: “Poles have enormously contributed to the British economy and are thankful to have many opportunities to work and study in the UK”.
Meanwhile, Jakub Krupa of the Polish Press Agency in London criticised the whole campaign, saying it had been blown out of proportion by the media after the Polish Express weekly published an article based on “a single comment” on a Facebook page.
John Zylinksi, the son of a Polish war hero who fought the Nazis, said the strike would draw attention to the fact that many Poles living in Britain “feel seriously scapegoated”.
‘There was a discussion that it would prove how hard Polish people work and the benefits immigrants in general brought to the country. More than 1,000 Polish workers are set to protest outside parliament instead of going to work. Tadeusz Stenzel, chairman of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain, has warned in a statement that the strike was “an irresponsible and divisive way of presenting arguments in the immigration debate”. But people should donate blood regularly all year round “without linking this to any political activism”.
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Mr Stenzel added: “Blood is universal and has no race, religion, gender, or indeed political opinions, and we belive it should not be used for political purposes”.
