Some within the Labour Party Desire Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Assures Me He Will Endure – and Britain's Economy Is Set to Get Better.

"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to