🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede 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 a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to