“Welcome to the future, negotiations without end.” That’s one acerbic view of the Brexit deal with the text containing no fewer than 244 references to “arbitration tribunals” and a further 170 to a “partnership council” – the bodies that will decide the details and settle future disputes, hinting at further negotiations. There will be 19 specialised committees and four working groups which will hold at least 21 meetings each year, excluding aspects affecting Northern Ireland.
Britain and Europe should expect years of continued wrangling over trade, warned Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Those who think the Brexit drama comes to an end with this deal will be bitterly disappointed.”
Among several issues not nailed down by the agreement sealed on Christmas Eve are:
* Financial services – with future rules “still to be established”, despite the sector employing more than 1 million people, paying more than £75bn in tax.
* Professional qualifications in services jobs – with nothing agreed on their recognition in the EU, despite the UK enjoying a huge surplus in such exports.
Anton Spisak, a Brexit expert, said “I’m astonished how thin the deal is. This falls even below the standard of some recent EU FTAs [free trade agreements].”
The UK/EU relationship chart never did show a clear breach apart from a shift onto a new footing with tr Uranus trine the composite Uranus now till late January 2021. That’s followed by the irritatingly contradictory stop-start tr Uranus square tr Saturn hitting on the 2nd house Neptune in late March/April, May, July, November and across the New Year into 2022 so financial wrangles and panicky, erratic progress. Confusion, evasion and indecisive discussions in late April and May, again through 2022 with tr Neptune square the 3rd house composite Mercury (transport issues?). Tr Uranus will square the 5th house Venus and trine the 12th house Jupiter in 2022 and square the 5th house Mars in 2023 – that could affect financial services amongst other things, since 5th house covers speculation. Some positive outcomes, others unsettling and creating insecurity and bad-temper.
The UK EEC chart of 1 January 1973 when the country joined the bloc is no clearer.
The French needless to say are crowing contemptuously with the Libération newspaper describing the agreement as offering only “a facade of commercial freedom for the UK”, while committing London to maintaining standards on the environment, workers’ rights and climate change.
“While the US is shaking off Trump’s 2016 win, to restore their role, influence and image in the rest of the world, Britain is consumed by the eccentric plan of the conservative elite to return to exerting [global] influence from a position of splendid isolation.”
“The United Kingdom finds itself once again facing a question that was never resolved after 1945: its place in the world. It’s like Back to the Future, from the 1950s.”
Only time will tell whether the doomsayers are right or the Rule Britannia choir will intone their way into the promised land of a (not entirely) free and fruitful Britain. Grasping at straws I suppose it will help not having to be a net contributor to the EU as the UK like elsewhere wrestles with the pandemic economic hangover.
All things seek change. It is the natural order. I am sure the EU will change too but at the moment it is the best hope we have of offering some sort of counterweight to the undermining efforts of such heavyweights in the world as China, Russia and even our assumed allies, the US. I think the union that is the UK will end sooner than the EU. But I also recognise that it is extremely difficult to read a chart without personal bias, as we saw with the many predictions that Trump would gain a second term and only the few who looked closely enough to see that his chart was about endings (e.g. robynray.com).
I am no expert in astrology but what I do see is that it is often a good deal more complex than it appears at first sight and it is easy to get carried away unless you let yourself be guided by more than ‘the obvious’ or what you expect to see. Intuition seems to play a large role, but I guess it is only by experience that you discover just how much to apply.
Marjorie, any prediction for the GBP vs the Euro or USD? Thanks in advance!
No one focuses on the problems this creates for thousands of people who lived between two countries and relationships put under strain etc. It seems that people being able to have allegiance to two countries is no longer allowed. It is a sign of increasing control over all our lives and I wonder if the astrology shows this control freakery. You now have to account for yourself to one country alone. The first casualty of this post EU deal will be the poor people unable to get help in Southern England’s hospitals which are now saturated. No chance they will be flown to Brittany just across the water where the hospitals are empty as has happened where the Germans took French patients etc. Was taking back control really meant to not allow people suitable medical care in a pandemic ? Is that UK in splendid isolation?
There will be no Brexit for the wealthy: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/27/sunak-suggests-eu-access-for-financial-services-will-exceed-brexit-deal
It is simply a devious way to prey upon and delude the ignorant and the poor.
The British state is a net contributor to the EU, but the British private sector, meaning the greater part of the economy, has benefited from it and will suffer from Brexit, which is likely to bring an initially small, but constant and growing, decrease in the average standard of living relative to the EU, until the UK inevitably tries to rejoin in the next generation. Brexit will be an exercise in humility for Tory hubris. And Bojo will prove to be one of the most disastrous PMs ever, as Trump is one of the worst Presidents. Pluto in Capricorn, ever since Edward I, Henry VIII and George III, has always been about the madness of the abuse of power.
In 20 years they’ll aks to come back.
In 20 years there will not be an EU. I give them 5 or 6 years at the most.
Really doubt that, Peter.
Europe and the EU are resiliant.
Sorry, but the astrology says otherwise. For those of you who know how to, look at the EU chart(S). There is more than 1 of them, but they all say the same.
By about the middle of this decade there is no way the EU will be around in its current format. That’s not me saying it, that’s the astrology.
‘Tell me’, he said, ‘who gives better offerings, a miserable man or a happy one’?
-’A happy one, of course.’
-’Wrong. A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy yo a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred’.
-’But surely, I said, you have to reward him eventually. Otherwise he will stop offering’.
-’Oh, you would be surprised how long he will go on. But yes, in the end, it’s best to give him something. Then he will be happy again. And you can start over.
Madeline Miller, Circe
to my mind the above (imagined) conversation explains why Nigel Ferrage and so on, the ‘brexiteers’ would careless about a resolution to this problem? They retain their profile and their relevance by wallowing in the anguish
Smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand. No extension of the deadline, just an idefiinte one hidden in the small print. Typical Boris, kicking the can down the road. A deal which brings little or no gain (except for the super rich) until a future government grasps the nettle and asks the people if this is really what they wanted?
Thanks Marjorie. The endless meetings and working groups will, no doubt, provide employment for some! I think it’s interesting about Mercury in both these charts here, since it has been “sensitised” by December’s solar eclipse. Neptune reaches 23 Pisces next year, aspecting Mercury from the 6th house. I wonder if this could indicate the kind of transport confusion we’ve just seen at Dover? Also, perhaps suggests the transport of vaccines. With Mercury ruling the 12th and 9th houses I dread to think what’s been hidden, fudged, or misunderstood in this so-called “deal”. I’m never sure how long the magnifying effect of an eclipse lasts, but at least six months seems likely. Some sources say longer, but I haven’t made up my mind about that.