Some within the Labour Party Seek Starmer Out. He Assures Interviewers He'll Endure – and Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I will remain in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify 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 unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to