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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances 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.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to