A Number of within the Labour Party Desire Keir Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Informs Interviewers He Will Endure – and the Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed 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 about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication 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 a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

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