LONDON (AP) — Britain's Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said on Monday that he would lower the number of immigrants and make it harder for them to live in the UK long-term. He is dealing with a problem that has caused trouble for many governments and has helped a new party that is against immigration become stronger. This new party might be a threat to the main political parties in the country.

Starmer, whose Labour Party won a big victory last July, is facing pressure from voters who are unhappy about high immigration levels. Many people think this has put a strain on public services and caused problems between different ethnic groups in some areas of the country.

Starmer said he would stop Britain's open borders policy. This happened soon after the right-wing party Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, won many local elections. The Labour party and the Conservatives, who were the main parties in British politics for a long time, lost a lot of support in these local elections for councils and mayors.

Starmer said they will make the immigration system stricter in all areas, like for work, family, and study, so they have more control. He also said they will make a system that is controlled, chooses carefully who comes in, and is fair.

Immigration has been a strong topic in Britain for many years, particularly since 2004, when more countries joined the European Union in Eastern Europe. Most EU countries limited people coming from these new countries for some time, but the UK quickly allowed them to work.

By 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron promised to reduce the number of people coming into the country each year to under 100,000. Four Conservative governments could not reach this goal. In 2016, many people were angry that the government could not control immigration from the EU, and this played a large part in Britain voting to leave the EU.

However, Brexit did not reduce the number of people coming to the UK with visas for work, study, or to be with their families.

Recently, people have worried that the government is not controlling who comes into Britain. This is because many migrants have arrived in the UK using small, unsafe boats controlled by criminals. Last year, around 37,000 people crossed the sea in these small boats.

Starmer has promised to reduce that number by stopping the criminal groups that arrange the journeys.

He has promised to greatly reduce the number of people legally moving to the country, but he didn't say exactly how many. He plans to do this by giving fewer visas for jobs that don't need much skill, requiring higher salaries for work visas, and making migrants have better English.

Starmer used the same phrase as the campaign that wanted Britain to leave the EU, which he was against before. He said his government would "take back control" of Britain's borders.

He said that past Conservative governments had allowed many people to come into the country easily, even though the country had voted to have more control over who enters. He said this will not happen anymore.

On Monday, the government announced plans to greatly reduce the number of visas for jobs that do not require high skills and stop hiring people from other countries to work in care homes. These jobs are important but often do not pay well. The government stated they would make these jobs better so that people from Britain would want to do them, but they did not say how.

Martin Green, the head of Care England, said that hiring workers from other countries was very important for their industry.

He said that stopping it now, without warning or money and with no other choice, is not just a bad idea – it's cruel.

Starmer claimed that some parts of the British economy relied too much on cheap workers from other countries. He said the government would spend more on training and apprenticeships for British workers.

With the new rules, most immigrants will have to live in the U.K. for 10 years to become citizens, instead of the five years it is now. But, people who help society and fit in will not have to wait as long.

Starmer said that 'people coming to Britain is part of our country's history,' but without clear rules, 'we could become an island of strangers, not a country that moves forward together.'

Groups that help refugees and some Labour politicians were not happy with what Starmer said. He claimed that many immigrants had caused "huge harm" to British society. A Labour politician called Sarah Owen wrote on social media that "if we try to copy the right wing, our country could go down a dangerous road."

Chris Philp, the Conservative spokesman for immigration, thinks Labour's plans are not good enough.

He said people are right to want less immigration. He asked Parliament to decide on a yearly limit for immigration that they must follow.