The Good Friday agreement – ‘one of the great achievements of the turn of the century’ – brought to an effective end nearly thirty years of violence in Northern Ireland. The UK attorney- general Suella Braverman is now accusing the EU of putting the peace process at risk by holding the Johnson government to the terms they signed in the Brexit deal – which is a reversal of the truth.
Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, in between bouts of lambasting Putin while showboating over Ukraine, has also been raining criticism on the head of the Northern Ireland Protocol. As has ‘nightclub bouncer’ David Frost, the former UK/EU negotiator.
The UK/EU relationship chart is sparking up trouble exactly now with tr Uranus square the composite Venus, on and off into 2023, at which point tr Uranus picks up the aggravated square to the composite Mars into 2024 for a heated emotional spat. The recent Scorpio Solar Eclipse was also conjunct the composite Neptune leading to evasions, delusions and outright deceptions.
Joe Biden has already issued stern warnings about not upsetting the agreement and his relationship with Boris, hostile at best, is deteriorating badly now until this autumn and again early next year with tr Saturn opposition the composite Mars Pluto; and worsening in 2023 with tr Uranus in square to Mars Pluto.
The Good Friday Agreement, 10 April 1998 5pm Belfast, has been stressed since Brexit with the Sun, Saturn, Mars in Aries catching the tr Uranus conjunction and now the tr Pluto square to the Mars in 2022/23. So stretching to almost breaking point and ending in a swamp in 2024/25 with tr Pluto conjunct the Neptune.
None of the Johnson acolytes looks too cheerful this year though whether that is because their shameless posturing has come unstuck or for other reasons isn’t clear. Braverman, a controlling Sun Aries opposition Pluto with a flashy Mars North Node in Leo tied into an ultra-Fixed grand square with Uranus and Venus – is sagging this year, feeling disempowered and into a tumultuous three years thereafter.
David Frost, a Sun Saturn in Pisces with an explosive Mars Uranus Pluto in Virgo and Boris’s unrealistic Jupiter opposition Neptune – is facing panicky failure this year and a tough slog till late 2023.
Liz Truss with her eye on the crown has a Leo Sun in a stratospherically ambitious trine to Neptune, sextile Pluto; with a wobbly and inconsistent T Square of Mercury Saturn square Uranus opposition Jupiter and a tough Mars in Taurus. She’s mainly on a losing streak in 2022/23 with one blip of luck this August to December.
Words fail me. Well not quite. It’s amoral and punted by those of mind-bendingly low calibre.
Add On: The Times May 14 2022
‘In Downing Street the blame has been laid at the door of Liz Truss, the foreign secretary. She has been accused of unnecessarily antagonising Brussels to curry favour with the Tory right while allowing aides to brief journalists that some less Brexit-blooded ministers, such as Michael Gove and Sunak, were trying to stop the plan.
One source described it as “leadership feather-fluttering”, whereas others in government suggested that Truss fully deserved the nickname given to her by Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former adviser: the human hand grenade who blew up everything she touched.
“The whole thing is just very painful,” a government aide said. “The Foreign Office has gone very gung ho on it. Yes the process with the EU has been very tortuous but this was never meant to be an exercise in EU bashing. It was meant to be all about the Northern Ireland peace process.”
“Another senior figure who has worked on Brexit added: “The PM has ‘religion’ on this and thinks that the ERG [ the pro-Brexit European Research Group] will love it — but I’m not so sure. What I do know is that a lot of the wider parliamentary party are horrified. Even if it’s technically legal — and there are a range of views on that — it is not going down well.”