🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never any time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, does he need a different script?

No government, 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 governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the results that followed 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