Sir Keir Starmer has dismissed concerns about his leadership and said he will still be prime minister this time next year.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the prime minister said he believes forthcoming elections in Scotland, Wales and England in May are not a “referendum” on his government.

His comments come after a difficult 2025 for Sir Keir, who has been battling slowing economic growth, poor poll ratings and speculation he could face a leadership challenge.

In his recent New Year’s Day message, the PM promised to “defeat the decline and division offered by others” and insisted 2026 would see people feel “positive change” in their lives.

Speaking to the BBC, Sir Keir said: “I was elected in 2024 with a five-year mandate to change the country, and that’s what I intend to do, to be faithful to that mandate.

“And I will be judged, and I know I’ll be judged, when we get to the next election, on whether I’ve delivered on the key things that matter most to people.”

Parliament returns from the Christmas recess on Monday and the prime minister is set to hold his first Cabinet meeting of 2026 the following day.

He is expected to tell ministers: “I know families across the country are still worried about the cost of living.

“There will be no let-up in our fight to make life better for them.”

In his interview with the BBC, the prime minister vowed to stand firm in his leadership.

“Under the last government, we saw constant chopping and changing of leadership, of teams, it caused utter chaos, utter chaos, and it’s amongst the reasons that the Tories were booted out so effectively at the last election,” Sir Keir said.

“Nobody wants to go back to that. It’s not in our national interest.

“We know from that evidence what happens if you go down that chaotic path, and I’m not going to take us back to that kind of chaos.

“I will be sitting in this seat by 2027 and if this long-form interview works, we can try it again in January of next year as well.”

Sir Keir’s comments come just over five months before elections to the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd, the Scottish Parliament and to many local authorities in England on 7 May.

Each will have potentially huge consequences as Labour is currently in power in the Senedd and runs many of the urban councils in England where local elections are being held.

In the lead-up to the Christmas period, the government faced a succession of embarrassing episodes, including briefings about a plot to take over the leadership by Health Secretary Wes Streeting at the start of November.

At the time, Streeting said suggestions from Sir Keir’s allies that he was seeking to challenge the leadership were “self-defeating nonsense”.

That episode was quickly followed by a perceived U-turn ahead of the Budget on whether to raise rates of income tax, and then the unprecedented premature publication of the Office for Budget for Responsibility’s (OBR) response to Rachel Reeves’ Budget before she had announced it in the Commons.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Sir Keir “expects gratitude” when “we know it’s his decisions that have made the cost of living worse”.

“Labour have no plan to fix Britain and working families are paying the price,” she said.