Some in the Labour Party Desire Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Tells Interviewers He'll Remain – and Britain's Economy Will Get Better.

"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big 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 – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret 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 after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to