🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship 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 was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to