Several in the Labour Party Want Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Assures Interviewers He'll Endure – and the Economy Is Set to Get Better.

"I will remain in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

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 tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir 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 courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to