Several within Labour Seek Keir Starmer Gone. He Tells Interviewers He'll Survive – while the Economy Will Improve.

"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to