Several in the Labour Party Desire Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Assures Interviewers He'll Remain – and the Economic Outlook Will Improve.

"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister 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 excessively, 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 although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about 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".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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 courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes 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 such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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