The Miner
The origins of the paper lay in "The Miner", a monthly paper founded by Keir Hardie in 1887. Its main purpose was to advocate for a federation of Scottish miners. The first issue contained an influential programme for labour, co-authored by Hardie and Chisholm Robertson, marking Hardie's switch from support for the Liberal Party to advocating independent labour candidacies. The paper was used as Hardie's platform in the 1888 Mid Lanarkshire by-election, following which Hardie became a founder member of the Scottish Labour Party and relaunched "The Miner" as the "Labour Leader".