A Number of in Labour Desire Keir Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Tells Me He'll Survive – and the Economic Outlook Will Strengthen.

"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to