Campaigners wanting Britain to leave the European Union warned today that immigration had "spun out of control", as the new mayor of London launched his campaign for the country to stay in the bloc.
Exactly four weeks before the so-called Brexit referendum on June 23, the Office for National Statistics published data putting net migration -- the difference between those arriving and leaving Britain -- at 333,000 last year.
The record of 336,000 was set in June last year.
A total of 270,000 EU citizens came to Britain last year, up 6,000 from 2014, while and net EU migration was up 10,000 at 184,000.
"The system has spun out of control," Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson, the former London mayor and a possible successor to Prime Minister David Cameron, said in a statement.
"We cannot control the numbers. We cannot control the terms on which people come and how we remove those who abuse our hospitality. This puts huge pressure on schools, hospitals and housing."
He said Britain had benefited from immigration but it had to be limited, and staying in the EU meant "kissing goodbye permanently to control of immigration".
UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage tweeted: "Mass immigration still hopelessly out of control and set to get worse if we Remain in EU."
Many Europeans are drawn to Britain due to its relatively strong economy, and under EU rules of freedom of movement, they are entitled to move to the UK.
Brexit supporters have put ending this freedom of movement at the heart of their campaign.
Immigration minister James Brokenshire said the number of people moving to Britain "remains too high" but said that leaving the EU was "no panacea".
The referendum contest remains close.
The "Remain" camp is on 53 percent and the "Leave" campaign on 47 per cent, according to the What UK Thinks website's average of the most recent six opinion polls.
New London mayor Sadiq Khan said he wanted to move the debate away from so-called scare stories seeking to frighten voters into either the "Leave" or "Remain" camps.
He said he was pushing a "positive case" for staying in rather than simply predicting doom if Britain voted the other way.
"What we need to be doing, people like me who passionately believe that we should remain in the EU, is to argue the positive case for remaining," he told AFP at a meeting with young entrepreneurs in the British capital.
