Several within the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Tells Me He Will Endure – and Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to