Some within the Labour Party Seek Starmer Gone. He Assures Me He'll Survive – and the Economic Outlook Will Strengthen.

"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his political fate are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, 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 considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following 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 failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to