Several within the Labour Party Want Starmer Gone. He Assures Me He Will Remain – and the Economic Outlook Will Improve.

"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about 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 concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, 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 desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to