🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I plan 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 major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to