A Number of in Labour Want Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Tells Interviewers He Will Remain – and Britain's Economic Outlook Will Get Better.

"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

There is never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some 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 saggy end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. 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 situation under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular 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 faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not catching 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 unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk 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 his career, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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