A Number of in the Labour Party Desire Keir Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Tells Interviewers He Will Endure – and the Economy Is Set to Improve.

"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, 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 concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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