🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never any break for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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