🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe 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 be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar 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 unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret 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 past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on 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 many years, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to