Several within the Labour Party Desire Keir Starmer Gone. He Informs Interviewers He'll Endure – and the Economic Outlook Is Set to Improve.

"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer 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 clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against 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 told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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