🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat 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 comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to