🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months 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 show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted 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 following an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" 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 evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to