A Number of within the Labour Party Seek Keir Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Informs Interviewers He'll Survive – and the Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.

"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

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

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time 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 argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk 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 many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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