A Number of within the Labour Party Seek Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Informs Me He'll Endure – while the Economic Outlook Is Set to Strengthen.

"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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