Several within the Labour Party Seek Starmer Removed. He Tells Interviewers He'll Survive – and Britain's Economy Is Set to Improve.

"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues 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 Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

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 problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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