🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – 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 implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to