Several within Labour Seek Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Informs Me He Will Survive – while the Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue 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 tried to protest, perhaps too much, 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 concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to