🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought 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.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to