Several in Labour Seek Starmer Gone. He Assures Me He'll Endure – and Britain's Economy Will Improve.

"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought 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 – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of 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 voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to