🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit 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 step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to