I need to hit the range,

as it's been two weeks and I think I'm going into withdrawal symptoms. Like it just took two corrections to get 'symptoms' right.
In the meantime, I'd like to point you toward this article on the immigration policy of the Labour Government in (fG)Britain:
The release of a previously unseen document suggested that Labour’s migration policy over the past decade had been aimed not just at meeting the country’s economic needs, but also the Government’s “social objectives”.

The paper said migration would “enhance economic growth” and made clear that trying to halt or reverse it could be “economically damaging”. But it also stated that immigration had general “benefits” and that a new policy framework was needed to “maximise” the contribution of migration to the Government’s wider social aims.

The Government has always denied that social engineering played a part in its migration policy.

However, the paper, which was written in 2000 at a time when immigration began to increase dramatically, said controls were contrary to its policy objectives and could lead to “social exclusion”.
Short version: Labour decided that, since immigrants were more likely to vote for Labor, they'd flood the country with immigrants. This served two purposes: trying to put Labour in control damn near forever, and making them feel good in their social engineering work:
He alleged at the time that the sharp increase in immigration over the past 10 years was partly due to a “driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multi-cultural”.
Y'know, like a bunch of the progressives in this country want to flood the place with illegal immigrants and then allow them to vote, etc.; they figure it'll help put the progressives in power long and strong enough to 'transform the country', to borrow a phrase from Obama.

And, being progressives, they didn't want to let the peasants know what their objectives were:
The original paper called for the need of a new framework for thinking about migration policy but the concluding phrase — “if we are to maximise the contribution of migration to the Government’s economic and social objectives” — was edited out.

Another deleted phrase suggested that it was “correct that the Government has both economic and social objectives for migration policy”.
Hey, Britain: nice little country you've gothad there; shame what's happening to it.