Some in Labour Seek Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Informs Me He'll Endure – while Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Improve.

"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about 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 be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" 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 – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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