🔗 Share this article

"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action 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 thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to