Some in the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Informs Interviewers He'll Endure – and Britain's Economic Outlook Is Set to Get Better.
"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.
For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.
Renewed Energy for the New Year
As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.
That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.
But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?
Leadership Questions
The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.
However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.
Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.
"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.
The Spring Test
The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.
Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.
This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.
An Optimistic Outlook
He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.
The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.
- He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
- He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
- He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.
His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".
Political Challenges
The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.
However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.
When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?
No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.
The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.
Regrets and Risks
The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.
Starmer blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.
And he is courting evident political risks as the year progresses. His alliance 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 content with such action seems unlikely.
International Law and Brexit
He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".
Opponents demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.
And there has always been bubbling desire 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 align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.
A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to
