🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought 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 – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted 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 previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" 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 close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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