LONDON — Keir Starmer has six months to prove his mettle to his party amid swirling doubts within the governing Labour Party that he can reverse plunging public confidence in his U.K. administration.

The prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves survived a budget statement this week that did just about enough to avoid a reckoning with the markets and Labour Members of Parliament. But with voters turning their backs on Labour, at some point his party will decide whether to stick with him, or twist.

Ministers and aides told Bloomberg that Starmer needs to convince his lawmakers and the public before local elections in May that “Starmerism” can be a vote winner. Speaking anonymously about party ructions, some close to the premier fear a move against him in the new year, before one potential challenger, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, has an opportunity to return to Parliament.

What’s clear is Starmer can ill-afford his approach to continue to be what internal critics say is an incoherent mess, as typified by a chaotic run-up to the budget. As the year draws to a close, Labour MPs are asking themselves whether Starmer can stop the rot. Pollsters are doubtful.

“It’s very unlikely, if history is anything to go by, that Starmer, Reeves and the government as it stands will be able to turn this around,” YouGov’s head of political data, Patrick English, told Bloomberg Radio on Friday. “The majority of voters will get the chance to vote in May and at the minute, as far as we can tell, they’re preparing to give the government a right good kicking.”

Certainly the budget didn’t seem to please voters, with many left feeling forgotten. Polling in the aftermath suggest the British public has completely lost confidence in the Starmer-Reeves project.

The Labour government that swept to power in a landslide election win just 16 months ago has so far pursued an awkward mash of competing ideas.

There were big election promises to prioritize growth and investment that suggested Starmer might be the heir to former premier Tony Blair. He’s also poured a lot of energy into international affairs, with a focus on security and the war in Ukraine.

This year, his government has toughened its messaging around migration and crime: an approach espoused by Starmer’s top aide, Morgan McSweeney, aimed at stopping the working class falling to populism.

There’s also been some more typically Labour re-distributive social democracy, with taxes on the rich and higher public spending, as well as increased welfare spending forced in part on the government by rebellious Labour backbenchers who rejected attempts to curb spending on disability benefits and winter fuel payments to pensioners.

Many inside Labour have asked which is the real Starmer. Some posited that Reeves’ budget, broadly seen as a tilt to the left, may be a sign of a permanent political shift from Downing Street to shore up his position.

They may be disappointed. Those close to the premier say don’t expect him to pick a side. Starmer’s allies said bridging different ideas is the key to success for a progressive leader in a world dominated by President Donald Trump, and in a country with huge structural economic problems. Any leader who doesn’t push on all these fronts will fail, one argued.

That approach featuring a long list of U-turns frustrates many within the party, who see it as lacking vision or direction. The run-up to the budget — including a retreat from plans to raise income tax — was described by government officials as hellish and shambolic, and compounded the sense ministers aren’t fully in control of the narrative.

Reeves’ package itself left Blairites and some of those previously allied to McSweeney less enthused about a budget without a growth plan. That’s not without risk as Health Secretary Wes Streeting emerges as a leadership contender on Starmer’s right flank. It looks like the preelection pitch to back growth and business is out of the window, though there will be a fresh push in these areas in the coming weeks, a government official said.

Only a few weeks back, it was Burnham and the so-called soft-left sharpening their knives calling for a government with more Labour values. They won’t go away, especially if the May elections are brutal and Reeves comes after the welfare budget again.

One Starmer ally said he isn’t lurching between different factions, he’s trying to work with them all. Another sought to highlight Starmer’s successes on the international scene, saying it was no small achievement to have helped hold Trump back from the brink of siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin in seeking a resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, Starmer’s inner circle knows things haven’t gone well domestically, and are seeking more robust arguments for what he is trying to do. The premier will make an unashamedly Labour case that paying more tax is worth it for better public services, an aide said.

Starmer said on Thursday that the budget had “asked everybody to make a contribution” to protect public services and help people struggling with the cost of living. “I’m not going to apologize for lifting half a million children out of poverty,” he said.

The premier also knows it is essential to reform welfare, spark more dynamism in the U.K. economy, and stop small boats crossing asylum-seekers across the English Channel. His problem is, each time the government pulls in any of these directions, it upsets a Labour faction.

No. 10 aides despaired at the perennial criticism, asking who Starmer’s detractors think could do a better job at handling Trump and British populist leader Nigel Farage. Changing leader for either Streeting, Burnham or former deputy premier Angela Rayner would destroy Labour’s mandate and deliver Farage to power, they argued.

The officials said there’s still time to turn things around before the next general election, scheduled for mid-2029. But they also fretted that governing is becoming impossible in an age of hyper-cynicism, a total lack of patience and instability caused by international events such as the Ukraine conflict and Trump’s tariff war.

Starmer’s inner circle still hopes that in 2026 the prime minister the country and party wants is the decent pragmatist who takes different ideas and tries to make the best of a bad hand. Their fear is that Labour MPs and voters want something else.

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