A Number of in Labour Want Starmer Gone. He Assures Me He'll Endure – while Britain's Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date 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 closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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 following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on 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 his career, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering desire 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 align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to