The Brexit chaos is causing major alarm in Northern Ireland with talk of the Good Friday Agreement being threatened. That was the power-sharing deal struck on 10 April 1998 which saw an end to hostilities. The DUP was the only party to oppose it. No definitive or constructive ideas have been forthcoming about how to resolve the problem of the soft North South border in Ireland in the event of a Brexit outside an EU customs union. Boris Johnson is swatting it aside as an irrelevance and Barnier is playing it up as a chance to keep the north within the EU.
The GF Agreement chart goes look highly stressed this year and on with tr Pluto square the Sun 2018/19; tr Uranus in an explosive conjunction to Mars across mid to late April this year, returning later in the year; high-wire this July and again in 2019 with tr Uranus square Neptune; and a tested-to-the-limit tr Pluto square Saturn 2019/20 – with worse aggravation in the years following.
The Northern Ireland chart looks jangled this month; at a critical point and trapped with tr Pluto square the MC in 2018/2019; and uncertain and depressed from May 2019 with tr Neptune opposition Saturn.
The relationship charts between North Ireland and both Republic of Ireland 1922 and 1949 charts look angry, blocked and damaged this year, worse next.
Sinn Fein, 28 November 1905, is running into a deadlock in about 18 months’ time. The DUP 30 September 1971 is deflated and argumentative this year; and nerve-stretched in 2019/2020. Relations between the two parties will be disrupted in a minor way in 2018, and be in complete upheaval in the three years following. That relationship chart has a bitter-hostility composite Mars opposition Pluto square Mercury Sun (Venus), which tr Uranus is clashing with in hard aspect till late 2021.
The UK/Northern Ireland relationship chart is moving through trouble times in 2018/19 with tr Pluto trine the composite Mars; and undergoing major adjustments to accommodate a change of direction, starting this May, but really exacerbated from May 2019 when tr Uranus will conjunct the composite Pluto. The old rules won’t apply any more.
The same goes for the UK/Republic of Ireland with ructions when tr Uranus moves into Taurus from May onwards; with more upsets and a re-set in diplomatic ties in 2019/2020.
Heaven knows what that all adds up to. No one looks happy, including Arlene Foster, the DUP leader.
Whether tr Saturn conjunct the UK Capricorn IC and Sun late this year and through 2019 is strong enough to separate the UK into its constituent parts, I’d doubt. Though it is possible, and the problems are mounting over Scotland and Wales devolved powers, never mind Gibraltar. I’m intrigued to see how the Solar Arc Moon opposition the UK Saturn, exact this time next year works out. The Saturn represents the legislature and the populace are obviously a million miles apart from their hapless politicians.
thankyou for this amazing tutorial
Robin,Given the maverick nature of N Ireland politics, there is the potential for a small but seismic change at Westminster. What if the as-yet-unresolved conundrum of the Irish border can only solved by imposing UK customs controls at UK Irish Sea ports? This crosses the DUP”s red line that N Ireland must be treated exactly like other parts of the UK and, if that happens, might the DUP withdraw its support for the Tories at WM? If so, we have a UK minority Government liable to lose a confidence vote at any time. Likewise, it has long been Sinn Fein policy not to take its seats at WM, but if they get sufficiently riled by DUP, e.g. about the protracted failure to re-establish power-sharing at Stormont, they might be tempted to turn up at WM and change the voting dynamic. A lot of “what-ifs there, but is the WM Gov taking any steps to minimise these risks? Re your thought that the EU might consider that it”s time the UK spent a few years in the wilderness, I had the picture in my mind of the ghost of General de Gaulle looking down on Brussels and saying “I warned you not to let the b*stards in!
@ Mystic Mum …. “Majorities .. that’s how democracies work.”
That’s how “majoritarian democracies” work Mystic Mum. Not all. Critics call it out as relating to being a “tyranny of the majority” and many countries opt rather for the “consensus democratic” system. It shouldn’t be forgotten either that the United Kingdom is not a singular country. It’s a construct of two Kingdoms only. Scotland and England (with Wales and provinces of Northern Ireland). There is no UK written Constitution, surprise, surprise, and Queen Elizabeth SECOND of England, whilst being the FIRST Queen Elizabeth that relates to Scotland, is NOT the Queen of Scotland.
And when it comes to the “super-majority” UK system that you highlight in your post, it seems strange to me that UK political parties ruling the roost are often in power with less than a 40% “majority”. Cameron as an example became PM with 36% of the vote (of those who actually voted, that is. 22% of the electorate overall). In other words 60% / 70% plus (a majority) of the UK electorate doesn’t vote for them at all. To my mind the political system in the UK, between one thing and another, is FAR from being democratic and I haven’t even started on the 800 unelected parasites sitting in the House of Lords.
UK benefits to EU citizens? Mrs May had choices, as ONE example she did NOT have to pay child benefit for the children of EU migrant workers. In my opinion she made the wrong choices. Check out the benefit system.
Commonwealth versus EU citizens? I’d reckon many people would disagree with you on that one.
Language and legal? You should take a look at the problems that UK agencies in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, as examples from 50 odd CW countries, are having in recruiting staff, such as for NHS and Social Care, due to the fact that many of the applicants don’t speak English at all. And of course Theresa May has now issued fast track visas for individuals from the Philipines in an attempt to fill the 100,000 NHS nursing vacancies. The vast majority of these applicants don’t speak English either. I won’t even bother to get into how the legal system in a large number of Commonwealth countries doesn’t relate to ours either. Sharia Law would make for a good starting point.
Why 1927? Because of the Royal and Parliamentary Title Act 1927 when Royal Assent was given (Wikipedia). Many astrologers use the midnight (London) April 12th 1927 chart as it relates to the adoption of the current name of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.
Shirley, good summary of the shambles that is Brexit.
Well that doesn’t look good at all Marjorie! FAR from it.
Why on earth wasn’t all of this taken into consideration before the Tories at Westminster took a leap into the dark? Why did they not do their homework? It just beggars belief.
What it has highlighted is that Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales aren’t valued and equal members of this Union at all. The sheer strength of numbers of the English electorate (85%) will always dictate for the whole of the UK. Not exactly democratic.
And sad to say pulling out of the EU related to, in the main, numbers of migrants heading for the UK. That ‘problem’, if you want to call it that was created to a great extent by Westminster offering benefits that most other EU countries (25) didn’t do, attracted migrants here in large numbers, such as for ONE example, child benefit for hundreds of thousands of children who remained in their homeland.
Theresa May as Home Secretary prior to being PM failed abysmally at controlling large numbers of migrants coming in from non-EU countries, such as Commonwealth, which exacerbated the strength of feeling and subsequent actions of the electorate, imo. And the latest is that as EU nurses etc leave the country, and to fill the 100,000 vacant nursing posts in England, they are being replaced by nurses from Pakistan, India and the Philipines. Is this the type of UK that many Brexiteers envisaged?
I call it utter MADNESS! Destroying the UK for what exactly?
Does the 1801 chart still apply Marjorie when taking into account that since that time most of Ireland has left the 1800 Union of UK and Ireland? What about the 1927 chart? I see there’s a great deal going on there over the next couple of years or so in relation to transits, progressions and solar arcs.
“What it has highlighted is that Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales aren’t valued and equal members of this Union at all. The sheer strength of numbers of the English electorate (85%) will always dictate for the whole of the UK. Not exactly democratic.”
No, that is precisely democracy in action. 85% is not just a majority, it is a super-majority. Majorities normally get their way. That is how democracies work. If the 15% got their way, that would be elitist and undemocratic.
“That ‘problem’, if you want to call it that was created to a great extent by Westminster offering benefits that most other EU countries (25) didn’t do, attracted migrants here in large numbers, such as for ONE example, child benefit for hundreds of thousands of children who remained in their homeland.”
To the best of my knowledge, we were required by EU law to provide EU citizens in the UK the same benefits as British citizens. EU citizens cannot be treated differently from British citizens. Therefore, the only way to reduce benefits to EU citizens would be to reduce it for British citizens as well.
If given the choice between migrants from the EU and from the Commonwealth, I would take the Commonwealth any day. We share more in terms of language and legal and political systems with the Commonwealth countries than we do with the EU. In a sense, the Commonwealth is British, the EU never was, nor did we become European.
Why 1927? The Irish Free State became independent in 1922. The change in the Royal Title in 1927 was still quite vague (“Of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” became “Of Great Britain, Ireland”), as the King of the United Kingdom was still King of Ireland as well. And in any case, that did not give the country the title anyway. The current title of “Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” was first used in 1953.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_and_Parliamentary_Titles_Act_1927
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_of_the_British_sovereign#British_sovereigns