Several within Labour Desire Keir Starmer Gone. The Prime Minister Assures Me He Will Endure – while the Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required 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 only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to