🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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 perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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