🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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 following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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