🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent 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 said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – 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 gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to