A Number of within the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Removed. He Informs Interviewers He Will Remain – and the Economic Outlook Is Set to Improve.

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

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

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

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

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to