Regime Change In Your Head

24 hours ago, the mere existence of the Wagner Group was screeched as the proof that the Russians, and by extension all critics of Boris Johnson's war in Ukraine, were "the real Nazis", and that we had pretty much made up Svoboda, Pravy Sektor, the National Corps, C14, the Azov Battalion, the Aidar Battalion, the Donbas Battalion, the Dnipro-1 Battalion, the Dnipro-2 Battalion, and the Kraken Regiment.

What a difference a day makes. Suddenly, Yevgeny Prigozhin is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He's not, you know. He is really, really, really not. Rather, he has changed sides, as belligerents in any war often do, to ally instead with the Freedom of Russia Legion and with the Russian Volunteer Corps, as well as with all of the above. He has done so only for the money, of course; that is what mercenaries do and are. But if the Wagner Group were not Nazis, albeit for pay, yesterday, then they certainly are today. And you love them for it. 

Instead of being on neither or no side due to having little interest while nevertheless needing, to some extent, to have to deal with whoever won, the British Government loves them for it. The Labour Party, and therefore also the SDLP, love them for it. The Liberal Democrats, and therefore also the Alliance Party, love them for it. The SNP, and therefore also Plaid Cymru, love them it. The Greens, who are the King's Party in every way, and who are already hardline hawks in government in Germany, love them for it. The DUP, the National Conservatives, and the Boris Johnson Fan Club that is the Conservative Democratic Organisation, love them for it. The Socialist Campaign Group loves them for it. Sinn Féin loves them for it.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And I say again that on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.