Several in the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Informs Interviewers He Will Endure – while the Economy Will Get Better.

"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop 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 prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires 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 many years, the notion he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to