Some within Labour Seek Starmer Gone. He Assures Me He Will Endure – while Britain's Economy Is Set to Improve.

"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to