Several in the Labour Party Desire Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Informs Me He Will Remain – while the Economic Outlook Will Strengthen.

"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted 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 outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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