🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat in 2026.

There is never any time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, 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 even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. 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 growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to