Some within the Labour Party Seek Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Informs Interviewers He'll Remain – while Britain's Economic Outlook Will Get Better.

"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister 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 backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to