🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I aim to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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 following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails 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 a long period, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to