🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the conversation went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently 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

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso 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 stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, 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 own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of 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 – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to