🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

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

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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