🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, 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 – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted 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 past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action 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 idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to