A Number of within the Labour Party Want Starmer Out. He Tells Interviewers He Will Survive – while the Economy Will Get Better.

"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never any break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he told me 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 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge 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, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a change of tack?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to