Some in Labour Want Starmer Out. The Prime Minister Tells Me He'll Remain – and Britain's Economy Is Set to Improve.
"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.
There is never any break for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Once the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.
A Reboot for the New Year
As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.
That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.
But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to turn around?
Leadership Questions
The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.
However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.
Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.
"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he declared.
The Spring Test
The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.
Accurate – to some extent. But even though 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 a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.
Promises of Improvement
He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.
The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.
- He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
- He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
- He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.
His core point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".
Political Challenges
The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.
But despite facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.
When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?
No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.
Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.
Controversies and Dangers
The PM admitted 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 past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.
Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.
And he is courting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.
Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.
International Law and Brexit
He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".
Opponents demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.
And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.
Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.
A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to
