Some in the Labour Party Desire Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Assures Me He Will Endure – and Britain's Economic Outlook Will Improve.

"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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 backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – 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 courting clear 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to