A Number of in Labour Desire Keir Starmer Gone. He Assures Interviewers He Will Remain – while the Economy Will Get Better.

"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about 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 step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me 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 blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance 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 a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to