MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Immigration is rather beneficial for the United Kingdom, however, the citizens of the United Kingdom do not want uncontrolled migration, because it also has a negative impact on certain groups of Britons, UK Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday.
"As I have said on many occasions before, overall immigration has been good for the United Kingdom, but what people want to see is control of that immigration. That's why I think that what people wanted to see as result of coming out of the European Union. We are already able to exercise controls in relation to those, who come to this country from outside the countries within the European Union," May said in the House of Commons.
The UK prime minister added that London still believed that it was important to keep the net migration at sustainable levels, because of its impact on people "at the lowest end of the income scale."
On Tuesday, The Guardian reported, citing a leaked Home Office document, that the UK government plans to end the free movement of labor after the county's withdrawal from the European Union and impose strict limitations for foreign workers via the obligatory use of passports instead of EU national identity cards for all EU citizens at the UK border, among other measures.
According to the data of Migration Watch UK, net migration to the country amounted to 248,000 in 2016. It has been above Cameron's and May's target of 100,000 since 1998 and reached an all-time-high of 333,000 in 2015.
