Some in Labour Want Keir Starmer Out. He Tells Me He Will Survive – and the Economy Is Set to Get Better.
"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our interview went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.
There is never any break for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.
A Refresh for the New Year
But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.
This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.
Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to get better?
Party Concerns
The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.
But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.
Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.
"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.
The May Elections
The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments 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 circumstances under which he would resign, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.
Predicting a Turnaround
He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.
The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.
- He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
- He noted too, with the qualification that it was not 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 allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.
His central argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".
A Consistent Script
The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.
However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.
Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?
No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.
The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.
Controversies and Dangers
The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.
Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.
And he is courting clear political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.
Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.
Policy Stances and Pressures
He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".
Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.
And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.
The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.
A commitment to align with 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
