A Number of within the Labour Party Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Informs Me He'll Remain – and the Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. 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 a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially 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 governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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 inviting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to