Some within the Labour Party Desire Starmer Gone. He Informs Interviewers He'll Endure – while Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Improve.

"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though 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 circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific 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 point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just 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 "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further 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 undo the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into 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