🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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 following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" 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 obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to