Earlier this year readers asked what INDEPENDENCE Daily is going to be for, now that Brexit was ‘done’. Good question, worth a debate. However, the last months have shown that circumstances beyond our, the editorial’s team, control will also influence the future of this site and have already started to do so.

During the past 16 covid months more and more people have taken to produce their own private videos and podcasts, the links spread by ‘word of mouth’ – nowadays by emails or links provided in comment posts. During these lockdown times more and more people spent more and more time watching videos and listening to podcasts rather than reading.

There’s nothing wrong with that! We all need to inform ourselves as best we can since the government propaganda MSM aren’t doing their duty. However – there are only 24 hours in the day which can easily be spent just video watching and podcast-listening. So why not read as well? What is read stays in the mind longer than that which is only heard or seen. And one can refer to it, again and again.

Also worth mentioning is the effect of the anti-social media like facebook. More people have been using that, running their own pages for their own friends and acquaintances: maintaining such pages uses up time. The less said about that other one with the logo of that little blue bird the better.

Does all the above mean that a site like INDEPENDENCE Daily has suddenly become too old-fashioned, too ‘behind the times’, to be worthy of being kept alive?

So – should we simply pack it in? After all, looking at the reduced number of readers, shrinking since the beginning of this year, that would seem the inevitable conclusion: why keep a site running, with all the work it demands, when interest is waning?

We could of course just keep going until the server rental runs out. It’s paid for up to November this year and in a pinch we could just give you the “Debbie and Viv Show”. That would still allow comment posters to comment until the last day.

Here’s another thing: “lack of content”, i.e. manuscripts, isn’t only hitting INDEPENDENCE Daily. Other sites also have that problem. Perhaps, just as in any capitalist market, this means that a concentration process is taking place where only  a very few sites, usually run by London-based prominence, by ‘names’, would survive. That’s life, innit, and why shouldn’t a concentration of alt media sites occur, just as it used to do in the olden days of the print papers.

I would however argue: this means that fewer and fewer grassroot voices are heard, that fewer and fewer grassroots will have the opportunity to have their say. There is also the increasing danger that all those who’ve taken to using the antisocial media, especially facebook, will find their personal platforms ‘cancelled’ – platforms which reach friends and acquaintances, which are useful on a local or constituency level but which don’t reach the rest of the grassroots elsewhere. 

I would also argue: at a time when we, the people, have become more and more atomised thanks to the covid policies of this government, it becomes increasingly difficult for ordinary people to find places or sites where they can discover what people elsewhere in this country think and do.

The result of the Batley and Spen by-election for all those small, independent groups and parties are a stark reminder that there’s no hope for any of them without finding non-partisan support beyond any given local constituency because without a national, non-partisan platform an exchange of ideas or calls for action becomes impossible. Attempts to unify grassroots across the country will be doomed to failure when it’s impossible to reach a wider audience, an audience beyond their own political horizon or beyond their local constituencies.

You could argue that we’re now in a time of “everything by social media”, that the success of the last Freedom Marches show that private emails and tweets are quite sufficient. Thus platforms such as the one provided by INDEPENDENCE Daily are simply past their sell-by date. If this is the case, if our aim has become obsolete thanks to circumstances imposed not least by this government, then so be it. Debbie and I shall let the site run its course and die a gentle death by November 2021.

However, if you think that this platform is needed and will be needed even more in the coming months and years as the government is gearing up for a GE, then something needs to be done. We cannot go on as we are. 

That means, for example, engagement by writing articles – yes, you knew I would say that! But – isn’t writing difficult, even for those who produce article-length comment posts? Isn’t it something reserved for, ahem, the ‘professionals’?

I would draw your attention to the new writers whose articles you’ve enjoyed reading, from ‘Classical Liberal’ to Frederica, from those who took a break but came back like Janice North and those who are still on a break like ‘Norman’ who did the News Review when Debbie was hors de combat. They all are grassroots voices!

Yes, writing an article looks daunting – but those who have taken that plunge have found that it becomes easier with practice. More content by different writers means more readers which means the site can keep going. You all have something to say! And you have the right to be heard. That is what INDEPENDENCE Daily is for.

Something else you could do is promoting the site by linking to it or to single articles on whatever social media you do use, or in comment posts on other sites, to attract readers who haven’t heard of us. This is where I thank all subscribers, especially those who’ve joined in the last couple of days and weeks: please keep reading and please dare to post comments! INDEPENDENCE Daily needs you because more readers attracts more writers.

All the above also means that those of you who try to run as Independent candidates or who  try to organise for independent candidates ought to make use of this site to promote yourself or your candidates and your events.

The point, ultimately, is simply this: use this site or lose it. If INDEPENDENCE Daily is lost at a time when it will be needed urgently – be it in the forthcoming GE (Mr Tice is already appealing for candidates for that GE!) or be it in the looming battles against the ongoing thievery of our civil liberties, past covid and pre-’climate emergency’, it‘ll be too late. Once it’s gone, INDEPENDENCE Daily is lost forever.

We cannot go on as we are. The future of INDEPENDENCE Daily is in your hands.