‘Politics is not the art of the possible. It’s the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.’ John Kenneth Galbraith.
A few more random and rambled thoughts on Brexit sparked off by this morning’s papers. Background first, then the astrology.
‘The mass hysteria that now grips our political class, with die-hard Remainers reduced to the same state of apoplectic rage as spittle flecked Brexiteers, united in their theological dismay. Everywhere, you hear cries of heresy and betrayal. Ideology and conviction have triumphed over realism.’ (Jeremy Warner, Telegraph, URL below)).
One cogent explanation for the impasse is offered by Fintan O’Toole in his book: Heroic Failures: Brexit and the Politics of Pain (excerpt URL below). ‘The crucial idea here is the vertiginous fall from “heart of Empire” to “occupied colony”. In the imperial imagination, there are only two states: dominant and submissive, coloniser and colonised.’ So Brexit becomes ‘the imaginary existential struggle between the gallant English Resistance and the Euroreich.’ He quotes Anthony Barnett (THE LURE OF GREATNESS: England’s Brexit and America’s Trump) – “Britishness is now Brexitness.” “Europe “moved on from the second world war and Britain didn’t.”
What the above screams is Pluto – dominate or submit, puppetmaster or hapless puppet-on-a-string. The UK 1801 chart doesn’t have an overly strong Pluto except for one key aspect which is the UK Capricorn Sun sits exactly on the megalomaniac and none-too-rational Neptune/Pluto midpoint.
Pluto is much more obvious on the England 11 May 973 AD chart which has a ferocious do-or-die, unyielding Sun Mars Mercury in Taurus square Pluto (trine Jupiter, inconjunct Neptune). And it was England who voted for Brexit not the rest of the UK. So it’s more ‘Englishness is now Brexitness.’ And the England 973/EU relationship chart has a struggle-to-the-death, implacably hostile composite Mars opposition Pluto. And that battle is going to rage for many more years to come.
On the argument that England remains stuck in a World War 11 mentality – in psychological parlance that’s when a complex constellated. On the UK 1801 chart there are some similarities in mood to the outbreak of WW11. Having just watched Darkest Hour, the excellent film about Churchill’s unexpected elevation to Prime Minister in early 1940 with the country split about Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler, what was clear was how close in the early days it came to total surrender and annihilation. Until Churchill’s Pluto in Taurus stepped in to achieve the near impossible. (Which I should have known but my history lessons rather glossed over it and fixated on the victory.)
On the UK 1801 chart at the start of WW11 the Solar Arc Saturn had just moved across the conjunction to the UK Sun and Neptune/Pluto midpoint during Chamberlain’s desperate efforts to seek peace. At the same time the Solar Arc Pluto was conjunct the UK 10th house Moon. Tr Uranus was well into the UK 8th by that time. And the Progressed Moon was conjunct the UK legislative Saturn when Churchill took over.
At the moment tr Pluto is opposing the 10th house UK Moon, tr Saturn is aiming to conjunct the Sun this December; the Solar Arc Moon will oppose the UK Saturn soon and tr Uranus is heading for the UK 8th house. Not that I’m suggesting a war will ensue this time round but it’s perhaps not surprising that similar feelings erupted especially amongst the older generation.
During WW11 on the England 973 chart tr Uranus was conjunct the England Mars Sun during the July 1940 Battle of Britain when the UK came under assault from large scale attacks by the Nazi Germany air force. Tr Jupiter and Saturn in Taurus followed along behind, so it was a punishing time.
None of which is an excuse for the maelstrom of Brexit. I’m an internationalist at heart, though I dislike the way the EU is run both in terms of the Brussels bloat and the economic lopsidedness of North/South inequality. But it’s always easier to handle when there’s some explanation for the madness.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/16/brexit-paranoid-fantasy-fintan-otoole
https://unbound.com/books/brexit/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/11/16/mays-deal-dead-arrival-britain-dump-pragmatism-exchange-revolution/
The early 1460s would have been the middle years of the Wars of the Roses. The battle of Towton which was the bloodiest in English history was fought in 1461. It was a period in which much of Englands ancient Norman aristocracy wiped itself out in the civil war, eventually leaving the way open for the upstart Tudors. However, the really significant change in the latter half of the 15th Century was the fact that as a result of the One Hundred Yeas War the English crown had lost nearly all of its European continental possessions by 1453 apart from the Pas De Calais. This brought to an end a relationship that has started in the 11th Century with the Norman Conquest and had been developed by the Angevin dynasty in the central Middle Ages. Much is made of the English Reformation under Henry VIII as marking a shift of Englands focus away from Europe towards the Atlantic and eventually a world wide Empire but the reality is that this development was in some way forced on the country by its physical expulsion of the English crown and aristioracy from its continental lands over 80 years before.
The period 1709-10 falls slap bang in the middle of the Wars of the Spanish Succession. It was preceded by the 1707 Union of England and Scotland and the beginning of the Hanoverian dynasty. The wars against Louis XIV were the time when Britain first became a major world power, linked to the development of its navy and the financial system that helped to pay for it.
Both are significant
Hugh, Thanks. That’s interesting. The 15th Century Pluto Return then started with a diminution of power before building back up later in different direction.
The 18th Century one was a definite rise.
My recollection is that these rare Returns sometimes start and finish empires. Rise on one, fall on the next, or the one after that.
The previous Pluto Return for England would have been 1217/1218 – just after the Magna Carta.
Really just trying to get a feel for the very broad pattern that will affect the USA in the early 2020s – not so much actual events as a gradual shift.
The lines of T S Eliot from the Four Quartets seem to sum it up
‘In my beginning is my end… In my end is my beginning’
My knowledge of history is very spotty, and I request Hugh to help me out and correct me if I am wrong, but there is a pattern to the Pluto Returns, at least as regards England.
a) Parliament (and its predecessor the Magnum Concilium/Great Council, now the House of Lords) rises in prominence & plays a role in the selection of the monarch.
b) There is a physical change in the membership of the Establishment.
c) The French played a direct role in English politics.
1217-18 – Just before, the barons (whose statues still adorn the House of Lords, looking down on their successors) had forced King John to concede the Magna Carta.
Henry III comes to the Throne and swears to abide by the Great Charter (Magna Carta) issued by his father three years ago. The barons are prominent and some of them are in rebellion against the new king. Their leader is the later Louis VIII of France.
1460s – The War of the Roses led to a physical destruction of the nobility in the battles. Almost the entire ancient nobility that traced its ancestry to the Normans was wiped out, with the later kings creating newer nobility that was more loyal to them. The principle that it is Parliament that decides who the monarch is dates from this period. Henry VI is the only King of England to also have been crowned King of France at Reims and he was deposed in England in 1461. Edward IV of York claimed the throne (was also the last King of England to have married a commoner before Prince Charles). His daughter married Henry VII of Lancaster and was mother to Henry VIII (he of the six wives).
1710s – Parliament again in the foreground, passing the Act of Settlement in 1701, which defined the current succession to the English throne, followed by the Act of Union with Scotland 1707. The arrival of William III (of Orange) from the Netherlands brought many Dutch followers, some of whom were raised to the nobility. George I’s accession to the throne led to the first Prime Minister (initially a term of abuse, as all ministers were supposed to equal) because the new King couldn’t speak English. The King and his Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole communicated in broken Latin apparently.
2008 till date – Parliament has become much more prominent than just a few years ago, with the Select Committee system playing a big role. The expenses scandal, which seems to have coincided with the arrival of Pluto in Capricorn, also shone a spotlight on Parliament in a negative way. The rules for royal succession were again changed, now allowing daughters to inherit on terms equal to sons.
The only thing I am missing is the French connection, unless Brexit is (or will provide) the French connection.
Also, there has been a long term change in power at each Pluto Return (1217-18, from the king to the barons; 1460s, broadly towards Parliament as we know it now, with a Commons; 1709-10, the executive power starts moving towards the Prime Minister).
Given that Theresa May has so many stars in the Anaretic degree, could she possibly be the last Prime Minister with any power? Could she be followed by a completely new power structure? As it is England, it is possible that the title of Prime Minister is retained, but as a powerless honorary sinecure, while the actual power resides elsewhere.
The 1217-18 Pluto conjunction is interesting. In the previous century the Angevin Kings of England ruled more of France than the Capetian French kings. King John managed to lose nearly all of it (Normandy, Britanny, Maine, Anjou) apart from Aquitaine which became Edward III base over a century later when the English crown again revived its claims to its French lands. It is the holding of continental land that tied England to France for over 400 years since it was not just the Crown that possessed overseas domains it but also much of the English ruling class. It also shaped English commerce through cities like Bordeaux. When the land and trade ties were slowly cut England and ultimately the rest of Britain drifted into new political, religious, trade and cultural patterns. The final link Calais was lost under Mary I in 1558. The future British Empire had its origins under her successor Elizabeth I, the term ironically being first used by the astrologer John Dee.
Some wags have suggested that if people want Britain to remain in the EU the best way to do it would be to get France to hand back the Pale of Calais.
I’m actually a bit surprised that the fact The UK was founded, and thus the 1801 Chart was drawn during Napoleonic Wars us discussed very little. Britain was not literally under siege yet unlike from 1806 to 1814 with Continental System (and yes, we study this at school, because Sweden siding with The UK led to a war with Russia and Russia seizing Finland in 1808), but there was heavy buccaneer activity around those years.
So, while the “siege mentality” may not be present on this chart with chart’s Pluto being prominent, I think it has a potential to activate with Pluto and/or Saturn passages to 10th house Cancer Moon trine 2nd house Scorpio Neptune.
For supposedly die hard imperialists the British gave up their Empire with remarkably little fight after the Second World War, certainly less so than the French. The one outstanding exception of the era was the Suez Crisis of October 1956 when Eden allowed himself to gulled into the Franco Israeli project to seize the Suez canal. Interesting to note that the Suez comparisons are being trotted out by the media now particularly as it happened in the month following the birth of a certain Theresa May.
As for 1940 the British almost certainly have done some sort of deal with Hitler who was an admirer of the British Empire and it is to their eternal credit that they did not. Incidentally, the UK is not alone in having skeletons rattling around from the past in its cupboard. The same can be said for the whole European continent. And people should not blind themselves to the fact that the concept of a United Europe was a popular idea among some fascists both before and after the Second World war. Sir Oswald Mosley even wrote a book called ‘Europe The Nation’ and campaigned for the idea. So it is not just Little Englanders who are perhaps deluding themselves about their past.
“The same can be said for the whole European continent. And people should not blind themselves to the fact that the concept of a United Europe was a popular idea among some fascists both before and after the Second World war. Sir Oswald Mosley even wrote a book called ‘Europe The Nation’ and campaigned for the idea. So it is not just Little Englanders who are perhaps deluding themselves about their past.”
Well, you must admit this was not such an original idea, given Marx and Engels had that already coined “Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt Euch!” in 1848, and Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism were a thing in the late 19th century. What was new with mostly Christian Democrat driven idea of Europa in the 1950’s was exactly that no Nation or Race or Culture or Class was superior to other. This idea was perceived and became popular precisely since millions had suffered of rampant Nationalism against which Macron spoke at WWI Armistice Memorial (he may have a 26 per cent approval rate, but he is, without a doubt, the best, if not the only, true political thinker among current World Leaders).
Agree with you regarding Macron, Solaia. A voice crying in the wilderness, I feel.
Just looked up Suez Crisis in 1956 which was the consummate humiliation for the UK. The England 973 AD chart was on a Pluto Return – as well as a Neptune Return. With tr Saturn in Scorpio also opposition the England Sun Mars and moving to square the Pluto. That chart does work well.
Previous Pluto Returns for England were 1709/10 and 1463/64. Those were the exact dates though the effects would be spread out over a number of years thereafter. I leave it to your superior historical knowledge Hugh to work out what pattern was ending/starting then.