A New Year’s Message from Labour Heartlands

To our readers, supporters, contributors, and fellow travellers,

As the year turns, we want to thank you. Not with platitudes, but with honesty.

The past year has not been easy for the common people of this country. Living standards have continued to fall, trust in institutions has drained away, and politics has too often felt like something done to us rather than with us. Many of you feel politically homeless. We hear that, because we feel it too.

It has not been an easy year for Labour Heartlands either. Like much independent working-class media, we have faced real financial pressure simply to stay online. There were moments when continuing was uncertain. That we are still here is down to the loyalty and generosity of our readers and donors, who understood that independent voices only survive when they are supported. We have chosen not to take the easy option of opening this platform to advertising that would shape or soften what we publish. That choice has a cost, but it protects our independence. Quite simply, you kept this platform afloat.

Labour Heartlands exists because independent, working-class voices still matter. Because history still matters. Because truth still matters, even when it is inconvenient. It was built in the vein of Tony Benn, to ask serious questions of power: who holds it, who benefits from it, how it is exercised, in whose interests it operates, and how it can be held to account. That is why Labour Heartlands exists to question authority, challenge orthodoxies, and give voice to people who have too often been spoken about but rarely listened to. Over the past year, you have stood with us as we have done just that, often against the grain and often at a cost. Every article you have read, every debate you have joined, every time you have shared our work or challenged it in good faith, you have helped keep that space alive.

We know many of you come here not for slogans, but for substance. Not for permission to think, but for space to do so freely. In a political culture increasingly hostile to dissent, that matters more than ever. We don’t promise easy answers or comfortable narratives. We promise to keep asking hard questions, to keep digging where others won’t, and to stand with those who are too often spoken about but rarely listened to.

If this year has shown anything, it’s that the appetite for truth, for history, and for serious debate has not gone away. It has grown.

As we enter the New Year, we do so clear-eyed. No false optimism. No managed hope. Just a quiet determination to keep asking awkward questions, keep digging where we’re told not to look, and keep standing with those who know that politics should serve people, not power.

Thank you for being part of this community.
Thank you for keeping it honest.
And thank you for walking into another year with us.

Here’s to health, strength, and solidarity in the year ahead.

Happy New Year from Labour Heartlands.

Paul Knaggs

Editor & founder of Labour Heartlands. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Citizen journalist and veteran writing from the working-class coalface challenging the corruption, liberal elitism, and political complacency that dominate Britain today. Dyslexic but driven… I write because silence serves the powerful. Defender of free speech, civil liberties, and real democracy. Committed to an open, accountable democracy, not the manufactured version handed down from party machines, think tanks, or the Westminster bubble.