Labour Heartlands

24/12/2025

Happy Christmas from Labour Heartlands 🎄

On this Christmas Eve, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to every reader, every supporter, and every donor who has stood with us throughout the year.

To the patriots who believe loving your country means holding power to account.
To the readers who refuse to swallow easy lies.
To the donors who keep this platform independent, ad-free, and answerable only to the people it serves.

This year has been heavy. War, division, censorship, and a political class increasingly distant from the lives of ordinary people. Yet through it all, one thing has remained clear: there are still millions who care about truth, justice, peace, free speech, and the dignity of working people.

Christmas is a time for reflection. A pause. A reminder that solidarity, decency, and hope are not outdated ideas. They are the foundations of any society worth defending.

So tonight, wherever you are, with family, friends, or quietly on your own, know this: you are not alone. A country is more than its government. A nation is more than its so called elites. And the future is still ours to shape.

From all of us at Labour Heartlands,
Merry Christmas.

And thank you for standing firm.

🎄✊🇬🇧

24/12/2025

In many cities across the United Kingdom, we're witnessing a growing trend: food and drink venues are increasingly refusing cash payments, a practice that inadvertently alienates some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

I've personally witnessed situations in cafes where individuals, lacking bank accounts but hoping for a bit of warmth and nourishment, were turned away merely because they had cash instead of a bank card. It is both inhumane and cruel to deny someone a meal or a warm drink based on their payment method.

The statistics paint a distressing picture – it is estimated that around 1.3 million adults in the UK do not have a bank account, a significant number of whom experience homelessness or live below the poverty line. For these individuals, cash is not just an alternative payment method; it is their only choice.

While businesses should have the autonomy to operate in ways they find convenient, they also have a responsibility to serve their communities inclusively. A balance must be struck. This petition proposes that legislation be enacted requiring all food and drink venues to accept cash payments. Such a law would ensure that everyone, regardless of financial status, has the opportunity to enjoy a meal and a warm place when needed.

By signing this petition, you stand with us in taking a step towards a more inclusive society, where no one is barred from essential services due to a lack of access to digital finances. Let's make sure that our communities are welcoming to all, regardless of how they choose, or are able, to pay.

https://c.org/Yn5WPSrtLm

Make it law for food venues to accept cash payments

24/12/2025

Greta Thunberg Arrested in London - And Pointing to a Bigger Problem 🇬🇧✊

Climate and social justice activist Greta Thunberg was arrested in central London this week at a pro-Palestinian protest, after holding a sign supporting hunger-striking activists. She was later released on bail.

In comments shared at the demonstration, Greta said the UK government is “criminalising empathy” and added: “I don’t need to express my utter disgust for the UK government and their treatment of this”, speaking out against what she sees as injustice and the punishment of peaceful protest.

Whether you agree with her politics or not, that sentence captures something deeper that resonates with many people right now.

This isn’t just about one activist being detained. This is about a pattern:

🔹 New protest laws in the UK have vastly expanded police powers, criminalising demonstrations that cause more than “minor disruption”, a vague and dangerous standard for democratic dissent.
Wikipedia

🔹 Tens of thousands of people across Britain have been arrested under similar laws simply for expressing their views or taking part in non-violent direct action.
Aftonbladet

🔹 Climate activists, human rights campaigners, and now advocates for political prisoners are finding themselves pushed into the criminal justice system instead of being heard in public debate.

When a government starts treating protest as a crime rather than a right, that’s not protection of public order, it’s a signal that disagreement is being policed, not engaged with.

Whether you support Thunberg’s positions or not, her point isn’t personal.
It’s structural:

If empathy is criminalised, what space is left for political conscience?

At a time when ordinary people feel cut out of decisions that affect their lives, on war, on civil liberties, on climate, on inequality, the answer shouldn’t be to silence dissent, but to rebuild a democracy that actually listens.

24/12/2025

🎄 A Christmas Carol, 2025 Edition 🎯

Good morning, .
On Christmas Eve, of all days.

Last night at the World Darts Championship, the crowd did what crowds do when they feel ignored, patronised and locked out of politics. They sang. Loudly. Repeatedly. So loudly the broadcasters had to cut the sound.

Not carols.
Not goodwill.

Just one message, understood instantly by millions watching at home.

When the Dart crowds start chanting about the Prime Minister, this isn’t “a fringe issue”. This isn’t Twitter noise. This isn’t bots, trolls, or the far right.

It’s the public mood breaking through the soundproofing.

You’ve governed by lawyers, not consent.
Criminalised protest.
Abandoned workers.
Failed the economy
Ignored women’s rights.
Cheerled war while living standards collapse.
Failed to tackle the profiteers
You’ve protected power and punished dissent.

And now even the darts crowd won’t pretend everything’s fine.

This isn’t satire anymore. It’s a mood.

So on Christmas Eve, with goodwill to all and clarity at last:

🎄 Please offer your resignation...

I no longer consent.

23/12/2025

Police arrest Greta Thunberg under the Terrorism Act

British police arrested Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday during a pro-Palestinian protest in London, according to UK-based campaign group Defend Our Juries.

The group said Thunberg was arrested under the Terrorism Act after holding a sign stating support for prisoners linked to Palestine Action, an organization that the British government has proscribed as a terrorist group.

A spokesperson for the City of London Police said two people had earlier been arrested for throwing red paint on a building.

"A little while later, a 22-year-old woman also attended the scene," the police spokesperson said in a statement. "She has been arrested for displaying an item [in this case ‍a placard] in support of a proscribed organization [in this case Palestine Action] contrary ​to Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000."

Palestinian activist group Prisoners for Palestine said Thunberg had been holding a sign reading "I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide."

Several experts, including those commissioned by a UN body, have said that Israel's offensive in Gaza amounts to genocide. Israel vigorously denies the claim.

Thunberg has spoken out previously about the hunger strikers, who are in prison awaiting trial after showing support for Palestine Action.

Defend Our Juries said the Tuesday protest targeted a building used by an insurance firm that, according to the group, provides services to the British arm of Israeli defence company Elbit Systems.

In June 2025, the UK Home Office announced plans to designate Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist organisation after activists broke into an airforce base.

The group vandalised two Royal Air Force Airbus A330 MRTT refuelling aircraft, spraying red paint into their engines and causing damage that the government said went beyond protest and posed a serious risk to national security.

The terrorist organisation designation makes it a criminal offence to support the group, display its symbols, or express support for it in public.

The decision was controversial and has been challenged by civil liberties groups, who argue the group's actions constitute criminal damage rather than terrorism.

British police have arrested climate activist Greta Thunberg during a pro-Palestinian protest in central London. The detention, under terrorism legislation, was linked to a placard referencing a banned group.

23/12/2025

23/12/2025

The Epstein Files and the Weaponisation of Disinformation

The real danger surrounding the Epstein files isn’t what’s being released. It’s what’s being see alongside it.

As documents and images emerge, some of them genuine, some contextless, some plainly fabricated, we are watching a familiar tactic unfold: flood the zone until nothing is trusted. When everything looks suspicious, nothing can be proven. That isn’t an accident. That’s how disinformation works.

There are real photographs circulating that show powerful, famous figures in Epstein’s orbit. That alone should demand serious scrutiny. But mixed into this are AI-generated images, manipulated screenshots, and outright fabrications, many of them pushing one very specific narrative: that Donald Trump must be implicated, regardless of evidence.

That may comfort some people politically. It doesn’t help the truth.

Here’s an inconvenient fact that rarely gets mentioned: WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, who had access to vast troves of leaked material across governments, corporations and intelligence agencies, found no dirt on Trump in the Epstein material. None. You can dislike Trump intensely and still acknowledge that.

Turning out AI images of Trump and young girls doesn't add to the cause, it pollutes an already stinking sewer...

Inventing evidence doesn’t strengthen justice. It sabotages it.

The strategy is simple. Turn the entire information space into a sewer. Mix fact with fiction, truth with lies, until the public throws up its hands and says, “We’ll never really know.” At that point, the genuinely guilty breathe easier. Accountability dissolves into noise.

The Epstein case is about power, exploitation and elite protection networks. It is not a party-political football. Smearing one figure with fake evidence only serves those desperate to divert attention away from their own connections, their own silence, their own complicity.

If justice is the goal, then facts matter. Evidence matters. Credibility matters.

Once disinformation pollutes everything, the truth doesn’t just get harder to find. It becomes almost impossible to defend.

And that, for some very powerful people, is the whole point.

Paul Knaggs, Labour Heartlands

23/12/2025

🎄 Warm Christmas Wishes from Labour Heartlands 🎄

As the glow of Christmas lights pushes back the long winter darkness, we want to send our heartfelt thanks to every reader, supporter, and fellow traveller who has walked with Labour Heartlands this year.

A special word of gratitude goes to our loyal supporters. Your generosity keeps us independent, ad-free, and able to speak plainly when others won’t. In a media landscape crowded with noise and conformity, you help keep a space open for honesty, history, and the voices of the common people. That matters more than ever.

At this time of year, we hope you find moments of rest. Time with family and friends. Plates warmed by comfort food. Minds briefly unburdened from the grind, the bills, the headlines, and the endless churn of modern life.

Christmas, believer or not, carries something older and deeper than commerce. It is about kinship, generosity, renewal, and the quiet insistence that hope can be reborn even in the bleakest season. It is also a moment to remember those for whom winter bites hardest. Not just today, but all year round. A just society is measured by how it treats those with the least.

If you fancy a little seasonal reading by the fire, we have shared a piece exploring the ancient roots of modern Christmas. Long before tinsel and television adverts, this season was shaped by pagan rhythms, solstice traditions, and communal survival through the darkest days. A reminder that solidarity, not spectacle, has always been at its heart.

Read more here: 👉 The Ancient Roots of Modern Christmas

https://labourheartlands.com/merry-christmas-to-all-wishing-you-health-wealth-and-happiness-in-the-new-year-ahead/

From all of us at Labour Heartlands, we wish you and yours health, wealth, and happiness in the year ahead. Thank you for standing with us. The road continues, and we walk it together.

Merry Christmas. Solidarity, always. 🌟✊

As the glow of Christmas lights chases away the winter darkness, we at Labour Heartlands want to extend heartfelt greetings to all our wonderful readers.

22/12/2025

Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

22/12/2025

Gutted... 🎸 Remembering Chris Rea (1951–2025) 🇬🇧

I’m genuinely gutted.

Chris Rea wasn’t just a great musician, he was one of ours.

Born and raised in Middlesbrough, the son of Italian immigrants who ran an ice-cream business in the town, Rea carried the North East with him in everything he did. There was always that Teesside grit in his voice, that sense of long roads, hard weather, industry, and quiet endurance. You could hear the steelworks, the docks, the rain on the A19 in his music.

He never chased pop stardom for its own sake. He sounded like a bloke who’d lived, worked, struggled, and thought about things. Bluesy, reflective, unflashy. Very North East.

Songs like The Road to Hell and Driving Home for Christmas weren’t glossy fantasies, they were about movement, distance, work, family, getting back to where you belong. Anyone driven home for the holidays knows exactly why that song hits the way it does.

Despite global success, Chris Rea never lost that grounded identity. He wasn’t pretending to be American, or a Londoner, or anything else. He was Teesside, through and through.

Chris’s journey wasn’t without hardship; he battled pancreatic cancer and suffered a stroke, yet his later work embraced his blues roots with honest emotion and depth.

His songs have become part of our cultural fabric, especially around Christmas, and millions around the world will hear his music today and feel that familiar, comforting thrill as they are driving home for Christmas.

Thoughts with his family tonight.
The North East has lost one of its quiet giants.

Thank you, Chris, for the soundtracks of so many roads, sunsets and holidays. You’ll be heard every year as long as Christmas lights shine and car radios play. 🎶❤️

🎸🖤

22/12/2025

You couldn't make it up, but then again... it looks like you really could.

22/12/2025

The West calls it "sanctions." The rest of the world calls it PIRACY. 🏴‍☠️

Gunboat Diplomacy Returns: The US Blockade of Venezuela
When does a naval blockade stop being law enforcement and become what it actually is: piracy on the high seas? The answer, apparently, is when Washington decides that international law is an inconvenience rather than a constraint.

The US Coast Guard is currently pursuing vessels in international waters near Venezuela, having already seized two oil tankers this month alone. On Saturday, a tactical team boarded a Panama-flagged vessel in international waters. Another pursuit is underway. The Trump administration calls this sanctions enforcement. Venezuela calls it piracy. International law suggests Venezuela has the better argument.

This is not hyperbole. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the United States is a party through the 1958 Convention on the High Seas, seizing foreign-flagged vessels on the high seas without flag state consent is prohibited except in cases of piracy, slave trade, or statelessness. Domestic sanctions, no matter how enthusiastically proclaimed, confer no authority under international law to board and seize vessels in international waters.

Yet here we are, watching the United States seize tankers, pursue vessels, and announce a “total and complete blockade” of a sovereign nation’s oil exports. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared the current status quo with Venezuela “intolerable” and vowed to “change that dynamic.” His deputy, Stephen Miller, went further, claiming that Venezuelan oil rightfully belongs to the United States because “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela.”

Read that again. A White House official is asserting American ownership of another nation’s natural resources based on historical corporate involvement. This is colonial logic dressed in policy jargon. It is the United Fruit Company’s playbook updated for the 21st century, and it should alarm anyone who values international law and national sovereignty.

US haven't just broken international law, they’ve broken the system. When the "Rules-Based Order" decides it can simply grab whatever it wants, the rules cease to exist.

Read more....

https://labourheartlands.com/when-piracy-becomes-policy/

When does a naval blockade stop being law enforcement and become what it actually is: armed robbery on the high seas? The answer, apparently, is when...