🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me 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 controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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