🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", 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 replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big point is that soon 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, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, 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 governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk 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.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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