Several in Labour Seek Starmer Gone. He Tells Me He'll Survive – while the Economy Will Get Better.

"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

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

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted 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 controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to