🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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