Some within the Labour Party Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Assures Interviewers He'll Endure – while the Economy Will Get Better.

"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted 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 fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated 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 argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

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

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to