Tuesday briefing: The 20 years of failure that led to Starmer's 'island of strangers'

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : Meanwhile, the accession of eight eastern European countries to the EU saw about 1.3 million people arriving in the UK over five years.
59% : They also introduced the first ever cap on total work visas, increased salary requirements, created new eligibility requirements for the points-based system, and introduced new English language requirements for those on spousal visas.
55% : Net migration: 229,000 Gordon Brown's government introduced a points-based system - first set out in a 2005 strategy document - for people coming to the UK from outside the EU.
53% : Meanwhile, under pressure from Ukip on the right, the Conservatives also promised an in/out referendum on EU membership.
53% : Theresa May's manifesto again retained the tens of thousands pledge; May said that leaving the European Union "enables us to control our borders in relation to people coming from the EU, as well as those who are coming from outside".
53% : He drew a distinction between "unskilled immigrants" coming from the EU and the need to "be much more open to high-skilled immigration".
53% : Net migration: 94,000 With severe labour shortages as a result of the end to free movement now biting, particularly in social care, the government launched a new health and care visa.
50% : The Home Office claimed that the new system would reduce unskilled EU migration by 90,000, but increase skilled migration by 65,000 a year.
49% : Net migration: 184,000 Amid significant shortages of workers in social care and agriculture, among other sectors, Boris Johnson dropped the tens of thousands pledge, and introduced an "Australian-style points-based system".
46% : All of these changes applied only to prospective immigrants from outside the EU, with no impact on the much larger proportion of the overall numbers coming from Europe. 2012 |
44% : With the flow of immigrants from the EU sharply declining and a spike in arrivals from the rest of the world not yet in full swing, the net migration number temporarily dropped. 2019 |

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.