Several within the Labour Party Want Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Informs Me He'll Survive – while the Economy Will Strengthen.

"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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 encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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 following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk 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 thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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