🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed 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 caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core point is that soon 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 while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents demanded denounce it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to