🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his term 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.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps 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 – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances 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 explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

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 after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic 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 acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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