🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – 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 stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister 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 outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to