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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

There is never truly break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

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

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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 facing evident political dangers 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 ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to