Several in Labour Want Keir Starmer Out. He Informs Me He'll Remain – while the Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to