🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard 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 observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails 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 his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed 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