🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. 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 stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister 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 within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to