🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he was sorry for 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been growing desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to