Some in Labour Desire Keir Starmer Removed. He Assures Interviewers He Will Endure – and the Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue 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 protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer 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 facing clear political risks as the year gets going. 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 ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is breaking his vow 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 backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to