Several within Labour Desire Starmer Out. He Tells Me He Will Endure – while the Economy Will Improve.

"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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 believe his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added 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 comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

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

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit 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 huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to