🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never truly downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

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

No administration, 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 only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted 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 controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including 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 more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to