🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification 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 full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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