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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – 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 more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

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

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

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