“With your feet on the ground you’re a bird in flight with your fist holding tight to the string of your kite.”
The deed is done, the die is cast – more or less, maybe. As the Boris tribe skip merrily on humming ‘practically perfect in every way’ it is tempting to believe past fears have been misplaced. Evidently he thinks the imposition of tariffs will prove to be like the millennium bug: feared by Cassandras as Armageddon, but ultimately passing off with little fuss. Dread warnings about the car industry will prove overblown, sterling depreciation will help offset tariffs for exporters, and importers will source more ingredients and components from the UK. He genuinely believes that with a bit of pluck, a fair wind and the advantage of language, a great legal system and convenient global time zone, the UK will find a way to prosper in partnership with some of the fastest-growing parts of the global economy. (BBC)
A jaundiced detractor might point to his natal Jupiter opposition Neptune. Sakoian & Acker remark of this placing: lack of practicality not favourable for business or financial involvements, unrealistic blind spot, makes promises can’t fulfil, unreliable, has an ego-centred notion of being a special messenger from on high.
Returning to the UK 1801 chart to ponder on whether fears have been overblown, what is significant – apart from the financial roller coaster and collisions for several years ahead of transiting and Solar Arc Uranus moving through the UK’s financial 8th house across (Solar Arc for longer) see post below 11th December – is another aspect.
The Solar Arc Pluto is moving to square the UK Midheaven in late 2021 and the UK Sun in late 2022, which suggests a major blockage and need to rebuild after old structures collapse. This repeats a similar Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the UK Midheaven and opposition the Sun in 1925/26. At that point there was a General Strike in solidarity with coal miners whose livelihoods were badly affected after World War 1. It wasn’t a history changing moment though it has become culturally symbolic of downtrodden workers, who went on to suffer worse through the 1930s.
The previous time of Solar Arc Pluto, this time in Aries, square the UK MC and Sun was in 1836/7 when there was increasing hardship from the curbing of Poor Relief. Chartism which fought for workers’ rights got under way.
It does suggest a mutinous under-class rising up in resentment.
The right-wing media have been hurling brickbats at Angela Merkel, whom they blame for EU intransigence and failure of any deal, though her relationship chart with Boris isn’t remotely as troublesome as his with Macron. Her Venus in Virgo certainly doesn’t appreciate his disorganized and aggressive Mutable T Square of Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto but that apart, she’s so so about him. Though no doubt her strait-laced temperament doesn’t take to his cavalier approach to the truth or indeed to fidelity. Their relationship chart does have a composite Sagittarius Moon which is catching the Solar Eclipse tomorrow. And her own chart has Mars in late Sagittarius which will be making her unusually argumentative and up for a fight.
The UK chart has the tr Jupiter Saturn in Aquarius moving through the 5th house in 2021, which will impact on speculation, entertainment, children and the nation’s ability to shine. Jupiter will boost confidence and help to keep the population smiling. Saturn will, au naturellement, do the opposite so hard work will be needed at times to keep morale high. There will be financial discouragements from tr Saturn square the 8th house Mars; and in 2022 conjunct the 5th house Venus and 2nd house Neptune. But a light at the end of the tunnel – from June 2023 for a year Jupiter moves through the financial 8th which should bring some better financial news.
It won’t be a complete meltdown catastrophe and all countries will have a post-Covid economic hangover so it won’t be an end-to-the-world-as-we-have-known-it. The UK has survived epic political failures before – Suez and Iraq amongst them. Though both of these irrevocably tainted the respective Prime Ministers of the day. Whether Brexit will be worth the pain for the least-well-able-to-cope sections of the community in the next few years is another question.
Another non-astro thought. Early on after the Brexit vote Yanis Varoufakis, former Minister of Finance, who lived through the humiliation of Greece at the hands of the EU, advised that negotiating with the EU was a waste of time since they wouldn’t budge and it would only end in tears. Had the May/Johnson governments heeded they might well have been better prepared. Adam Marshall, DG of the British Chamber of Commerce said today: “It is hard to believe that we still have to ask ministers for clarity on the nuts and bolts of trade – things like rules of origin, customs software, tariff codes and much more besides – just a fortnight before the end of the transition period. Ultimately, businesses can and will adapt to the UK’s new trade reality. Yet they are not miracle workers or mind-readers.”
What was it Boris said just two years back? – “F*** business” when advised that industry heads were concerned about a hard Brexit. Who does he think employs people?