🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk next year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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