Several in the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Gone. He Tells Me He'll Survive – and the Economy Will Strengthen.

"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

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

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

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 next election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge 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 catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point 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 provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention 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 comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to