Some within Labour Want Starmer Out. He Assures Me He Will Endure – while Britain's Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility 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 guard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as 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 progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to