Several in Labour Desire Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Informs Interviewers He Will Remain – while Britain's Economic Outlook Will Get Better.

"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

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

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including 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 facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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