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While post-2004 Polish labour migration to the UK was underpinned by diasporic spaces instrumental in facilitating social and labour market adjustments, the institutions of the host society such as trade unions also sought to establish links with migrants. The analysis of interactions between UK unions and EU migrants focused on organising strategies and specific provisions such as English language learning. However, the discussion tended to ignore the impacts of diasporic influences, from ethnicity and native languages of migrants to the outcomes of migrant worker organising. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative data, this paper discusses how Polishness, in its ethnic, historic and linguistic manifestations, has affected the internal dynamics of a migrant worker organisation created by a major UK trade union. The explicit acknowledgement of diasporic particularities of post-2004 Polish migrants not only enabled labour organising activities but also shaped the migrant worker organisation from within. The strength of diasporic influences on one hand and the chosen form of union organising on the other created conditions for the development of diasporic spaces within the institution of the host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews the 'Palestinian issue' in Anglo-American diplomacy after the end of World War II (1945- 1948). The author examines activities of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine and reveals the nature of Anglo-American controversy as to the Palestinian issue for the purpose. The operation of the above Committee resulted in identification of principles of the future structure of Palestine, which implied equitable coexistence of the Arabs and the Jews within one territory controlled by Great Britain, with two autonomous provinces to be subsequently set up under the control of the High Commissioner of Palestine. Since neither the principles developed by the Committee nor the follow-up plans on settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict were never implemented due to sharp criticism of both countries participating in the settlement, resolution of the Palestinian issue was referred to the competence of the UNO in 1947. A new Commission was set up, which comprised representatives of neutral states, who put forward a so-called 'plan of the majority' (which implied a partition of Palestine, based on setting up an Economic Union and turning Jerusalem into an international zone) and a 'plan of the minority' (a federal structure of Palestine, with its capital in Jerusalem, in a plan of three year transition period). The paper examines the political confrontation of the USA and Great Britain as to those plans, which came to an end in November 1947 when the UNO adopted a resolution on the rights of both peoples who lived in Palestine to set up two independent states. By pointing out the complexity and contradictoriness of the Palestine issue in the Anglo-American relations, the author concludes that a constant cause of the split-up between the USA and Great Britain was the loss by London of a decisive role in the global balance of military and political forces. Further, in pursuing their pragmatic objectives, both countries themselves often provoked large-scale Arab-Israeli conflicts, thus departing far from the official goal of their 'settlement'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many respects, recent East European migrants in the UK look like past migrants to the UK: they left poorer parts of the world in search of work and the better life in the UK. But in other respects, they look different: they are white. Their putative whiteness, however, has not exempted them from the effects of racism. But while there is growing evidence of how they have been targets of racism, less attention has been focused on how they are also perpetrators of racism. The purpose of this paper is to compare the ways Hungarians and Romanians wield ‘race’ to assert and defend the relatively privileged position their putative whiteness affords them in the UK's segmented labour market. I argue that these migrants mark, evaluate and rank difference in racialized ways to secure both social-psychological and material benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]