Some within the Labour Party Desire Keir Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Tells Me He Will Survive – and the Economy Will Improve.

"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought 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.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

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

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk 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 at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to