A Number of in Labour Want Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Tells Me He Will Endure – and Britain's Economy Is Set to Get Better.

"I'll remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega 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 – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated 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 challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

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

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year progresses. 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 a long period, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

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

And there has consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to