Feelings run high as expats in UK prepare to have a say

She gazed affectionately at the Thames, fed a piece of zytni - Polish rye bread - to a swan and smiled as the bird drifted away under Reading Bridge. 'I joke about how at home I feel in Britain now by calling this the River Thameski,' said Bogusia Dacyszyn, 34, who is a magazine designer.

When she came to Britain two years ago, her only thought was to find work. Her career here is now flourishing but, to her surprise, she also found something unexpected: a passion for politics.

'I never bothered voting in Poland because it was all so confusing and felt pointless,' she said. 'But since I started watching the politics of my homeland from a distance, my eyes have been opened to truths I could not see before.

'There is no way I can go home while the current political party remains in power,' she said. 'How dare they make my country alien to me through their homophobic, nationalistic policies? I am appalled and ashamed of the politicians running my homeland. I will do anything I can to get them out and, once they are gone, I will go home to support my country, even though I had originally planned to remain in Britain for many years.'

Dacyszyn is one of the 70,000 Poles who, this morning, will go to the polls in Britain in what is being heralded as the most important European election since the fall of communism.

For the last elections two years ago just two polling booths were set up in Britain for expats. Both were in London but, few as they were, they easily met the demand: in 2005, fewer than 5,000 Polish people in Britain bothered to vote.

Today's election, however, is so closely contested that 70,000 Poles have registered to cast their ballot. More than 20 booths have been set up across Britain in a bid to ensure no one has to travel more than 80 miles to vote. In an extra attempt to encourage their countrymen living here to turn out, Polish politicians from all parties have travelled to Britain in the past month to canvas support.

Reading is now one of Britain's top 10 Polish population centres. There are so many Poles that the weekly newspaper, the Reading Chronicle, publishes a Polish version: the Kronika Reading. It is an innovation that has been copied by other towns with large Polish populations and has seen the paper shortlisted for an award for 'the most significant contribution to future newspaper success' in the Fujifilm Grand Prix award.

At Malinka, a Polish delicatessen in Reading's central Oxford Road, opinion about the election is divided. 'Kaczynski has divided our nation and alienated us from our neighbours with their ridiculously, pathetically aggressive posturing towards Germany, Russia and the rest of the EU,' said Magdalena Wojciechow, 29, as she bought sticky slices of iced, poppy-seed cake. 'It made me ashamed when he demanded more votes for Poland in the EU to make up for the millions of Poles killed during the war. What a humiliating thing to do.'

But Maciej Nowak, 59, disagreed. 'I worry about corruption and unemployment in Poland,' he said. 'I am old and come from a poor family. The Kaczynski twins are upstanding people, untouched by corruption. Post-communist politicians failed the country. I want to go home and the Law and Justice party is the only one that will turn Poland into a country I can safely return to.'

In Stoke Poges, south-east Buckinghamshire, the debate continued to rage. 'I can't wait to vote,' said Krzysztof Tomkowski, 39, a welder who left Poland two years ago. 'I was forced to leave my family and my country because the politicians have devastated Poland with high unemployment. I want to go home but I can't do that and support my family until a new party has improved the situation.'

The recent politicising of Britain's Poles is in part a reaction to the 2005 election, when a turnout of only 40 per cent saw the tub-thumpingly nationalist Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his Law and Justice party triumph over the more liberal Donald Tusk's Civic Platform party.

The result of the election, called two years early after the collapse of the right-wing coalition led by Kaczynski's twin brother, Lech, hangs in the balance.

Pawel Kamionka, who invited politicians from the main Polish parties to Britain this month for a debate on Polish Radio London, says there is another battle the politicians must fight: ennui.

'I am probably as politicised as it is possible to be but even I am not sure I will bother to vote,' said Kamionka, who left Poland 15 months ago in protest after the government in effect seized editorial control of 17 public radio companies, including Szczecin, his own network.

He believes the politicians came to Britain only to be seen to try to entice young professionals in Poland and have no genuine urge to change the country.

'For me, it's a better thing not to have any contact with Polish politicians. I am getting on with my life regardless of Poland's politics,' he said. 'I came here to get away from the politics of home.'