🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega 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 about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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 government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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