Some within Labour Seek Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Assures Interviewers He Will Survive – while the Economy Is Set to Get Better.

"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his political fate are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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