Some in the Labour Party Desire Starmer Gone. He Assures Interviewers He Will Remain – while the Economy Is Set to Get Better.

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – 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 implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy 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 his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to