Several in Labour Seek Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Informs Me He Will Remain – while Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Strengthen.

"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk next year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following 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 "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with 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