Some in the Labour Party Desire Keir Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Tells Me He Will Endure – while Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to