🔗 Share this article

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

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM 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 governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on 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 many years, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics 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 coming days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to