POLITICO: Majority of Brits support high-skilled EU migration

04 September 2017

A large majority of Brits (86 percent) want the number of high-skilled EU migrants to remain steady or increase further after Britain leaves the EU, according to a survey published by the British Future think tank.

Of those who voted Leave in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership last year, half were in favor of the same number of skilled EU migrants and a third said they’d be in favor of an increase.

Two-thirds of those polled said they wanted fewer low-skilled EU migrants, while more than a third said the status quo was acceptable. A majority was in favor of low-skilled EU migrants working in construction, as waiters and as fruit-pickers.

The think tank highlighted a contradiction in views on migration.

Those polled “want overall immigration numbers to go down, while wanting to keep most flows of immigration at current levels,” the report stated. “And they want the government to do something about these issues, while having very little confidence in its ability to do so competently.”

Full article on POLITICO

British Future report


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