🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit 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 resign, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM 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 likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to