A Number of in the Labour Party Want Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Tells Me He Will Remain – and the Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed 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