Several in Labour Desire Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Assures Me He'll Survive – and the Economy Will Improve.

"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand 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.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point 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 provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted 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 controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication 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 his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to