LONDON (AP) — The leader of the UK, Keir Starmer, said on Monday that he wants to lower the number of people coming to live in the UK. He also wants to make it harder for them to stay. This is a difficult issue that many leaders before him have had problems with. It has also helped a new group that is against immigrants grow and might cause problems for the main political parties in the country.

Starmer's Labour Party won a big election last July. But now, some voters are unhappy. They are angry because many people are coming to the country. They think this makes public services difficult and causes problems between different groups in some places.

Starmer said he wants to stop 'open borders' in Britain. This happened after a party called Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, won many votes in local elections. The two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, lost a lot of support in these local votes.

Starmer said they will make the immigration system stronger in all areas, like for work, family, and study. This is so they can have more control. He said they will make a system that is controlled, careful, and fair.

Immigration has been a big topic in Britain for many years, especially since 2004. In 2004, more countries from Eastern Europe joined the European Union. Many EU countries did not let people from these new countries come and work easily for a few years. But the UK let people from these countries come and work right away.

In 2010, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, said he wanted fewer than 100,000 people to come and live in the UK each year. Four governments after him from the same party tried to do this, but they could not. In 2016, many people were angry because the government could not stop so many people from other European countries coming to the UK. This made many people vote for Britain to leave the EU.

But Brexit did not make fewer people come to the country to work, study, or be with their families.

Many people worry that the government is not controlling who comes into Britain. They see many people coming into the UK in small, unsafe boats. Last year, about 37,000 people crossed the sea in this way.

Starmer said he wants to make that number smaller by stopping the bad people who help others cross the border illegally.

He also said he wants to let fewer people move there legally. He did not say how many fewer people. He will do this by giving fewer visas for jobs that do not need special skills. He will also ask people who want to work there to earn more money and speak English better.

Starmer used the same words as the campaign that wanted Britain to leave the EU, even though he was against it before. He said his government would be in charge of Britain's borders again.

He said that in the past, Conservative governments let many people come into the country easily. But the country voted to have more control over who enters. He said this will stop now.

On Monday, the government shared new plans. They want to give fewer visas for jobs that don't need special skills. They also want care homes to stop hiring people from other countries for important jobs that don't pay much. The government said they would make these jobs better so people in Britain would want them, but they didn't say how.

Martin Green, who is in charge of Care England, said that getting workers from other countries helps them a lot.

He said, "Taking it away now, without telling anyone and without giving help, is a bad idea and it is cruel."

Starmer said that some parts of the UK economy used cheap foreign workers too much. He said the government would spend more money to train people in the UK.

With the new rules, most people who move to the UK will need to live here for 10 years instead of five years before they can become citizens. People who help the country and fit in well will not have to wait as long.

Starmer said that people moving to Britain has always been part of its history. But he said that if there are no clear rules, 'we might become like an island of strangers, and not a country that moves forward together.'

Some groups who help refugees and some Labour politicians did not like what Starmer said. He said that many people coming to the UK had caused a lot of harm to British society. A Labour politician named Sarah Owen wrote online that following the ideas of the right could take the country in a bad direction.

Chris Philp, a Conservative politician, said Labour's ideas about immigration are not strong enough.

People want less immigration, he said. He asked Parliament to decide how many people can come each year.