🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

However 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 strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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