The question is, if the country needs the economic growth. Allowing more immigrants in means more competition in job market, which may make it more difficult for natives to be hired.
Just to be clear, I'm not entirely against immigration. There are people who come from countries worse off than mine and need better chances. It's just if you're going to move to a foreign country, while you may bring some of your culture with you, you should still be expected to follow the laws as well as the pride of the new lands you live on. Not the laws cater to your pride at the expense of your neighbours who were born on the land.
Most people in Britain feel that immigrants are just coming here for the free housing and social welfare which is at the expense of the natives. That's how "Operation Raise the Colours" came about. It's one thing to allow immigrants for a more stable economy, but not if there's more immigrants to the point the natives feel restless.
I don't know how the birth rate in UK is but countries with significantly low birth rates (often well below the replacement rate of 2.1) rely on immigration to sustain their workforce, prevent severe population decline, and support aging demographics.
For example are Canada, Germany, and Sweden. They frequently uses high immigration levels to drive population growth in the face of an aging demographic.
In Asia, Japan has a rapidly aging population and declining birth rate, with foreign-born population growth significantly offsetting population decline.
And the extreme case South Korea who holds the world's lowest birthrate, around 0.8, and increasingly relies on foreign labor to mitigate a workforce crisis.
Balancing is hard, I know, but if the country didn't offer something interesting or special to the immigrants, they'll choose another country who gave them more benefit.
It's kind of like how I joke that at one point in history, the British Empire once conquered a quarter of the world. Now people of Britain feel a quarter of the world has conquered them!
Kinda like karma? For invading other countries? Netherland be next then.
