Some in the Labour Party Want Keir Starmer Removed. He Tells Me He Will Endure – and the Economic Outlook Is Set to Improve.

"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM 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 gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm 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 time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, 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 as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer 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 obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

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