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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to