🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk next year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps 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 – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to