Polish opposition takes campaign to U.K.

Leader of the main opposition Civic Platform party Donald Tusk sits in the lower chamber of Parliament during a break before the self-dissolution of Parliament in Warsaw, September 07,2007. Tusk heads to Britain and Ireland this week to try to win support from Polish emigrants ahead of next month's election, the centre-right Civic Platform said on Monday.

WARSAW (Reuters) - The leader of Poland's main opposition party heads to Britain and Ireland this week to try to win support from Polish emigrants ahead of next month's election, the centre-right Civic Platform said on Monday.

An estimated 2 million Poles have left since the former communist country joined the European Union in 2004. Most are in Britain and Ireland, where Polish plumbers, builders and painters have earned a reputation for hard work on low pay.

The Civic Platform said its leader, Donald Tusk, would campaign in London on Saturday before heading to Dublin later in the day. He will return to Poland via Scotland on Sunday.

Poland will hold a parliamentary election on October 21, two years early, after the collapse of the coalition led by the conservative Law and Justice party of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother Lech, the president.

The Civic Platform is favoured by financial markets, who believe it would reform the economy in the country of 38 million more quickly than the ruling party.

The emigrants are generally seen as more likely to support the opposition than the ruling party, but their impact may be limited because votes from abroad will count only towards Warsaw rather than affecting seats across Poland.

The president launched a campaign last week to try to bring home the emigrants, whose absence has led to an increasingly tight Polish labour market and soaring wages that threaten to cut short an economic boom.