🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to acknowledge 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 a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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