🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, 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 a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. 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 implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to