United Kingdom Tries to Limit Immigration

The United Kingdom has been moving to limit its "uncontrolled immigration," especially from Eastern Europe. However, a think tank in the UK has concluded that net migration is unlikely to change much this year because very few people are leaving the country, even if the number of immigrants might go down a bit.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says the figure for immigrants to the UK minus the number leaving will be around 200,000.

One reason it points to is that only about 30,000 UK citizens are emigrating - the lowest for almost a decade.

The government said it was committed to reducing net migration from its current 215,000 to less than 100,000 by 2015. 

As well as pointing to the emigration rate, the IPPR report says that the relative strength of the British economy compared with some Eurozone countries is likely to attract migrant workers from Spain, Portugal, Greece and the Irish Republic.

The government has announced a cap on skilled workers from outside the European Economic Area and is planning to curb the number of foreign students. 

These new limits on immigration seem to be motivated more by "social" concerns (the eventual integration--or lack thereof--of foreigners) in the current UK government than anything else, since they fly in the face of explicitly demographic concerns such as who will pay the pensions and health care costs of an aging population.