Several within Labour Desire Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Tells Interviewers He Will Survive – while Britain's Economy Will Strengthen.

"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

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 attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer 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 facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy 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 many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

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