I agree that it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but its a real thing:
>One second generation immigrant I spoke to said some Pakistani people campaigned for Brexit because they wanted to “control immigration in a way that was favourable to the Indian subcontinent”.
>“One of their arguments was that, if we leave, we’d be better able to accept people from the Indian subcontinent, professionals such as doctors, rather than taking them from Europe,” he said. “There was that strand that we’d lost control of immigration, that lots of people from eastern Europe were coming over, but, therefore, people from the Indian subcontinent weren’t getting a fair crack at the whip and it was that disparity. They felt the immigration system was unfair.”
>While EU migrants generally benefit from freedom of movement, those from countries such as India and Pakistan are subject to visa and work restrictions – a distinction that was played on by Vote Leave’s Michael Gove during the referendum campaign when he suggested that Britain’s immigration system was “racist”.
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/04/08/the-story-of-brexit-is-th...