Several within the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Informs Me He Will Survive – and the Economy Will Get Better.

"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged 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 proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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