🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. 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 circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement 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 partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to