Some within Labour Want Starmer Out. He Assures Me He'll Survive – and the Economy Is Set to Strengthen.
"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.
There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.
A Refresh for the New Year
With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.
This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful political year for him.
But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to turn around?
Party Concerns
The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.
But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.
On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.
"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.
Upcoming Local Votes
The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.
Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.
Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.
Predicting a Turnaround
He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.
The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.
- He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
- He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
- He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.
His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".
Familiar Arguments
The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.
But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.
When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?
No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.
Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.
Controversies and Dangers
The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.
Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.
And he is facing clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.
Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.
International Law and Brexit
He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".
Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.
And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.
Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.
A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to
