A Number of in the Labour Party Want Starmer Removed. He Informs Me He'll Endure – and Britain's Economic Outlook Will Get Better.

"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific 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 time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known 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, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, 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 "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering desire 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 plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to