🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to