🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me 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 controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising 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 progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention 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 comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to