🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another chat next year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point 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 guard a possible peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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 encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer 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 perils 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to