A Number of within the Labour Party Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Assures Me He Will Survive – while Britain's Economy Is Set to Improve.

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never any time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to