🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime 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 working to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though 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 MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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