Some within Labour Seek Keir Starmer Removed. He Assures Me He Will Survive – while Britain's Economy Will Strengthen.

"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, 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 concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline 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 peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted 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 previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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