🔗 Share this article

"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to