A Number of in Labour Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Tells Interviewers He'll Endure – while Britain's Economy Will Strengthen.

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, 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 acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to