🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted 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 – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

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