🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his term 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.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted 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 outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to