A Number of within Labour Seek Keir Starmer Out. He Tells Me He'll Endure – and the Economy Will Get Better.

"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his standing are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than 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 unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated 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 potential peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, 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 just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back 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 "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes 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 these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment 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