KEIR Starmer has insisted he will "lead from the front" into the next General Election amid speculation his premiership could be under threat.
Speaking to regional media ahead of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, the Prime Minister said his political project was a "10-year" endeavour and refused to "get drawn into" reports of plots against him.
Starmer also dismissed "the personal ambitions" of his potential future leadership challenger Andy Burnham, as he appeared to attack the Greater Manchester mayor's economic agenda by drawing parallels with Liz Truss.
It comes after a series of headline-grabbing interventions by Burnham, including policy proposals such as a 50p top rate of income tax and a tax cut for lower earners – which have been widely seen as a pitch for a future leadership bid.
Speaking to BBC North West, Starmer said: “I’m not going to get drawn in to commenting on the personal ambitions of the mayor, but I do want to be really clear about our fiscal rules because economic stability is the foundation stone of this Government.
“It was three years this week ago that we had the Liz Truss experiment where she abandoned fiscal rules, in her case for tax cuts, and the result was a disaster for working people.
“The same would be true if you abandoned fiscal rules in favour of spending. And I’m not prepared to ever have that inflicted on working people again.”
Asked whether he was to blame for a sense among some that Labour was a sinking ship, Starmer told ITV Meridian: “Let me take a different view, because in the first year of a Labour Government, we’ve delivered five million extra NHS appointments.
“We had an ambition for two million. We’ve done five million.
“We just rolled out childcare. This is from nine months to four years: very good for parents and carers who can get back to work.”
He said the UK Government was “cutting through” challenges in education as well as working on plans to “build the houses we need for our country, better rights for workers”.
“We’ve got four interest rate cuts in a row, three trade deals that we’ve struck which other governments couldn’t do.
“So we’ve made real progress in the first year of a Labour Government,” the Prime Minister said.
“I accept the challenge that we need to continue, and we need to do more, but there’s a considerable amount that has already been achieved and I’m very proud of it.”
Asked whether he could guarantee he would lead the ruling party into the next General Election, Starmer said: “Yes. I’ve been very clear that this is a project of national renewal – patriotic national renewal – I was clear about that when we launched the campaign, as we did last year.
“I’m very clear that that is a 10-year project. I led from the front into the last election, I’ll lead from the front into the next election.”
Pressed on potential plots against him, Starmer told BBC West: “I think all prime ministers have a degree of praise and criticism. My job is not to get drawn into that. My job to fix the problems in this country.”
The Prime Minister was also asked if his own unpopularity had “ruined Anas Sarwar’s chances of becoming first minister” in Scotland.
Starmer told BBC Scotland political editor Glenn Campbell: “No, Anas is an excellent candidate who will be incredibly good for Scotland with an absolute focus on delivery.
“And it’s a choice between taking Scotland forward with Anas, a Labour first minister working with a Labour government in Westminster – we work together very well – or a third decade for this tired SNP government that has failed on so many fronts.”
He was also asked if he would definitely lead Labour into the 2026 elections in Scotland, Wales and local councils in England.
Starmer said: “Yes, when I took over as leader of the Labour Party, people told me I couldn’t change the Labour Party. I did.
“When we went into the General Election, people told me, I couldn’t win and we did.
“Now I’m leading the change across the United Kingdom, including delivering better change for Scotland and I’ll continue to do so.”
