Some in Labour Seek Starmer Out. He Assures Me He'll Remain – and the Economy Will Improve.

"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed 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 this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to