🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry 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 "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk 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 unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to