Some within the Labour Party Want Starmer Gone. He Tells Me He Will Endure – and the Economic Outlook Will Improve.

"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

There is never any time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular 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 made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action 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 thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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