🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing no one would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on 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 his career, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to