Several within the Labour Party Want Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Assures Me He'll Survive – while the Economic Outlook Will Improve.

"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized 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 something of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me 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 comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention 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 thought he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to