Some within Labour Want Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Assures Interviewers He Will Endure – and the Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, 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 Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to