🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy 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 be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said 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 stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted 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 backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to