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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting 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 lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed 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 concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to