Some within the Labour Party Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Informs Me He Will Remain – while Britain's Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as 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 inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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