LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted in an interview Sunday he will complete his five-year term amid speculation his centre-left Labour party could oust him after upcoming local elections. Starmer, who won power in July 2024, also argued Britain should pursue further alignment with the EU single market, saying it was in the country’s “national interest” to get “closer” to the bloc. A decade after Britons voted narrowly to leave the EU, the stance is likely to draw criticism from Brexit advocates like Nigel Farage, whose hard-right Reform UK party has led in the polls for the past year. The anti-immigration party is predicted to make big gains in local elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England in May, and is on course to win the next general election due by August 2029. In a lengthy BBC interview recorded on Saturday, Starmer warned Britain “will be torn apart in a toxic way” if Reform wins power, as he vowed to lead Labour into “the fight of our times” against Farage’s “very right-wing proposition”. “I was elected in 2024 with a five-year mandate to change the country, and that’s what I intend to do,” he said. Starmer — whose popularity has plunged to record lows during his 18-month tenure, according to polls — argued multiple leadership changes under his predecessor Conservatives caused “utter chaos”. “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.”