🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also 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 EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to