Several in the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Out. He Tells Me He Will Remain – while Britain's Economy Will Improve.

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, 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 although he may not want 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 resign, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put 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 a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently 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 firmer commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to