🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to