🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

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

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me 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 backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move 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