🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, 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 even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM 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 outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to