🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good 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 during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

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

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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