Muslim votes and Labour

Did you know that Labour is defending 46 of the 50 seats with the biggest Muslim populations in the UK next week?

Given the polls, demographic history and the Conservative vortex of decline, the Red party should be on course to make it a sweep of all 50 and then some.

But wait up, because our exclusive research is revealing something different about these seats this time round.

Labour took 59 per cent of votes in those seats to 27 per cent for the Conservatives – and would normally expect to climb even higher given its strong national standing.

But Muslim loyalty to Labour has been sorely tested by party splits on Gaza and Sir Keir Starmer’s hesitation to support a ceasefire.

Walsall and Bloxwich holds the title of the Conservative seat with the biggest Muslim constituent base (21.9 per cent) but Labour’s Valerie Vaz is aiming to overturn a Tory majority of 4.8 per cent.

There are 24 marginal seats – where one party is sitting on a majority of less than 10 per cent – with a Muslim population of 10 per cent or more. Yet the surface picture tells only half the story.

In those 50 most Muslim-populated seats, 31 have a candidate from George Galloway’s Gaza-themed Workers Party on the ballot.

Almost all the rest have at least one independent candidate in the field running on an overtly pro-Palestinian platform.

How does this work?

Sir John Curtice, the doyen of British pollsters, sees nothing stopping Labour from winning this election but identifies a shared flaw between Starmer and Rishi Sunak.

Speaking on Tuesday night, Sir John said neither is able to craft a message about what kind of country they wish to create.

That means the public is "pretty sceptical" about leaders' ability to deliver what they promise. It's one reason why data like that on strongly Muslim constituencies matters.

And it's one reason why the outsider Nigel Farage is vying with the Conservatives for second place in the polls.

Bring back Douglas

Brexit, economic turmoil and political scandal have so damaged Britain’s international standing that people regularly ask Douglas Alexander: “What’s happened, we thought the UK was a serious country?”

The veteran Labour Party politician fields that point as he seeks a return to the front line, bringing with him a wide experience in global affairs. Mr Alexander lost his seat eight years ago after a stellar career at the top of the party working as the cabinet minister in charge of overseas aid and, before that, as a close aide to Gordon Brown in the Tony Blair-led government that ruled from 1997.

“We have a responsibility if Labour is elected to rebuild trust and to rebuild our reputation with many of our closest friends and neighbours,” Mr Alexander told The National while campaigning in Scotland for the UK general election.

The dawn of a Britain under Labour may resurrect his political career after the humiliation of losing his seat to Mhairi Black, then a 20-year-old Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate in 2015, and perhaps thrust him into a Starmer cabinet.

Meanwhile with Assange

Julian Assange's plea deal with the US has ended a 12-year saga in which he was holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London before spending years in a British high-security jail.

In that time, Assange has got married and had two children – one while at the embassy and one while being held in prison.

He has always insisted he was fighting for the freedom of the press after releasing thousands of top secret documents, and should not be extradited to the US. He also fought allegations of sex crimes in Sweden.

Australian citizen Assange, 52, faced a court hearing in Saipan, the capital of Northern Mariana Islands, this morning where he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information.

"Guilty to the information," Assange said, later joking to the judge during the proceedings that whether he is satisfied "depends on the outcome of the hearing".

The deal means he walked out a free man after time served in Belmarsh prison while on remand was taken into account.

Assange obtained hundreds of thousands of sensitive government documents leaked by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, which divulged military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.