🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth 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 sooner gamble and oust him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, 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 concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon 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 some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret 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 backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "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 courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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