Several in Labour Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Tells Interviewers He Will Survive – and Britain's Economy Will Improve.

"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another chat in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

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

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed 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 far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to