🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

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

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even 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 following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action 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 thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to