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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is courting evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to