🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised 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 local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration 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 did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" 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 perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to