Several within the Labour Party Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Assures Interviewers He Will Endure – and the Economic Outlook Will Improve.

"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, 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 MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although 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 a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to