Some within Labour Seek Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Assures Interviewers He'll Endure – while Britain's Economic Outlook Will Strengthen.

"I will remain in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if the interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never truly downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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