Several in Labour Desire Starmer Out. He Informs Interviewers He Will Endure – while Britain's Economic Outlook Will Improve.

"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge 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 a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action 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 at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

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