A Number of in Labour Seek Starmer Gone. He Tells Me He'll Remain – while Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Strengthen.

"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, 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.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted 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 following an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to