Britain's net migration total was down in 2016, standing at 248,000 -- a fall of 84,000 compared to 2015, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported on Thursday.‍

The ONS figures showed that during 2016 the number of people arriving from EU countries and elsewhere was 588,000.

With the total of those emigrating estimated at around 339,000, the net migration total last year was 248,000.

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Immigration， one of many of the hotly debated topics during last year's EU referendum, was raised during campaigning ahead of next month's British general election.

ONS said the fall in net migration was driven by a "statistically significant" increase of 40,000 people emigrating.

Among those leaving Britain were 117,000 EU citizens, an increase of 31,000 compared to the number of EU citizens leaving during 2015.

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ONS said last year the total number of people coming into UK for a year or more included 250,000, in addition to 264,000 non-EU citizens and 74,000 returning British citizens.

Immigration from the mainly East European states, known as the EU8 states, was down 48,000 in 2016, a drop of 25,000 over 2015.

At the same time EU8 citizens leaving Britain in 2016 was 43,000, an increase of 16,000 compared with 2015.

The EU8 countries are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

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The figures show that the net migration figure among the EU8 states of 5,000 citizens was the lowest since they joined the European Union in 2004.

Work was cited as the most common reason for international migration into Britain, with 275,000 people arriving for work in 2016, a decreased of 33,000 compared with 2015.

Around 180,000 of those arriving had definite jobs, while 95,000 came to Britain looking for work, said ONS.