Several within the Labour Party Desire Keir Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Assures Interviewers He'll Survive – and Britain's Economy Will Improve.

"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that many of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue 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 contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to