A Number of within Labour Seek Keir Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Assures Interviewers He'll Remain – and Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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 after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to