Northern Ireland – between a rock and a hard place

The war of words over the unresolved Northern Ireland trade screw up post-Brexit is escalating with David Frost, negotiator on the UK side, threatening the nuclear option of suspending the protocol about the land border between north and south if the EU doesn’t budge by the end of the month – which would breach international law. The EU in return say they are at the end of their tether with the perfidious Brits. Pro-Brexiteers say the EU is being mulish. Others say Frost’s fight with the EU is “political thuggery.” Matthew Parris remarks that Frost and Boris are “like two delinquents on a spree with spray-paint guns, they’re careless of consequence.”

 There’s also a fishing and immigrant dispute with France just to keep tempers flaring.

   While it is true the EU has a history of cobbling together last-minute compromises, it hardly seems the time to be rubbing them the wrong way with empty supermarket shelves and lorry driver shortages worse in the UK than elsewhere.

The Protocol is the compromise struck as part of Brexit talks – and agreed to by Johnson and Frost –  which kept Northern Ireland aligned to key bits of EU law but the two sides disagree on its implementation. The EU now accepts the U.K. is likely to unilaterally suspend parts of the protocol before Christmas.

  David Frost’s Term 1 March 2021, as UK negotiator with the EU has Mars in late Taurus in the 7th house of close relationships conjunct Algol which will be triggered by the last November Lunar Eclipse. This suggests a major collision of sorts and considerable aggravation.  Through this month and next there is a dashed-hopes Mars/Neptune midpoint being squared by tr Pluto which usually means plans don’t work out.

  His personal chart, 21 February 1965, is stonewalled now till mid November and on a sharp downhill slide of failure in 2022 and 2023 with tr Neptune opposition his Mars.  

  He does have Boris’s bovver-boy tendencies (as Parris puts it) with his Mars conjunction Pluto Uranus in Virgo, which is a bullying combination, not dissimilar to Boris’s Mars Pluto Saturn Uranus T Square; plus Boris’s poor-judgement, overly-hopeful Jupiter opposition Neptune.

  His relationship with the EU negotiator Maroš Šefčovič will be under a dark and angry cloud next February and exploding from May 2022 onwards. His relationship with Boris is ramped up in emotional excitement now till late November but again is deflating into glooms from next February and seriously trapped, frustrated and enraged, either together or descending into animosity from mid next March onwards, on and off till late 2023.

  The EU/UK relationship is riddled in suspicion and doubt through December, followed by evasions and muddles and then eruptions of strong feeling from May. Plus ca change.  Ditto the UK with the French, except even more rancorous through early spring 2022 and onwards. 2023 doesn’t look too settled either.

  Boris and the EU show no signs of reaching a friendly accommodation over the next two years plus either.

  The UK is being held hostage to the whims of a teenage tearaway, much as was the USA with Trump.   

See previous posts: June 8 2021 and February 2 2021

10 thoughts on “Northern Ireland – between a rock and a hard place”

  1. Well it seems as though we can’t even finalise the ‘ wonderful’ trade deal with Australia, so not too sure we will be in a very strong position, surely at some point the scales will fall from people’s eyes and change must happen.

  2. It is with this fodder – refusing to abide by the agreement and demanding ever more concessions from the EU while failing to control what is now effectively the EU’s outer border (making it an ideal route for smugglers of all kinds) which in turn is likely to lead to a trade war – that Boris & Co. will further stoke anti EU feeling in the UK to secure the next election for the Tories again. The EU is trapped and London knows it.

  3. I hope things will improve, but quite frankly, why should the EU care about trade problems in the UK, with the exception of Scotland & Ulster, the rest wanted out, so they’re get pretty much what they voted for incl. Johnson. (This is the same for the insanity that brought Trump about) I have several relatives that used to work at the Commission in Luxemburg for decades but long retired now. Sadly, it seemed the British delegation never really wanted to be a part of Europe even back then.

  4. Thanks Marjorie. I’ve been attempting an understanding of all this, and mostly failing! Interesting to see that November Lunar Eclipse cropping up again. The chart for that eclipse is certainly quite tough I think, with a fixed t-square of Mars opposing Uranus, square Saturn – close to the composite EU/UK Neptune in Scorpio. If Venus rules the eclipse, then it is trine Uranus too. Perhaps further financial shocks?
    Perhaps we need a really big fight to clear the air now? What I mean is, perhaps some of those who are holding back what they really think might find the courage to speak out about what’s happening? The whole thing is way beyond one of Boris’s stupid jokes. It’s hard to believe this is still a Conservative government, it is so destructive towards business and financial caution. I am no fan of the Conservatives, but shocked by all this reckless behaviour pretty much everywhere you look. “The whims of a teenage tearaway” sums it up perfectly.

  5. Pluto will transit the UK/EU composite chart’s North Node in January. Therefore, the next two months will be a slow burn culminating in January. Interesting that Johnson and Frost will probably attempt to play this Pluto transit as the EU attempting to lord it over us (south node in Cancer in the 10th) and this is why we need to break away. However, the real problems looks like it will be next August when retrograde Pluto transits the composite North Node and remains there until a beginning of October 22 and then remains on the North Node moving very slowly for a further two months. There is going to be a fight, which looks like it could involve some trade blockages. Capricorn’s determination to be authority is playing out on both sides of the Channel. There is a duel for authority and leadership going on here. Great this is all we need!

  6. I think you are too kind to them.
    They are not teenage hooligans but mature men who do not care what damage they inflict on others to maintain the lie that is Brexit which was all about avoiding scrutiny of taxation by proposed EU laws and never about what was best for the ordinary citizen.
    The UK and it’s territories is the front for the largest tax avoiders. Without them the Conservative party would lose its donors.They intend to make the UK a freewheeling , essentially lawless haven for the richest and a harsh low wage insecure society with draconian laws for the rest of us .Britannia unchained says it all
    The sooner Scotland brings the UK to an end the better No one ,not even his own party is impressed with Johnson and his cabal up here

    • There was a very interesting comment someone left on the Times website yesterday. It was along the lines that Northern Ireland has turned out to be doing very well, as business is picking up with Ireland. In fact they are beginning to trade more with Ireland than us, as they are still under the EU trading laws. This is worrying the UK Government, as Northern Ireland may reunite with Ireland. The DUP don’t want this and therefore – because the Conservatives are really called the Conservative and Unionist Party, something has to scupper this. It seems plausible that this may be the moot point.

      • So they would prefer that Northern Ireland fails in order to maintain the fiction that the Brexit deal they signed is a great success.
        That attitude is only going to hasten reunification of Ireland.
        They conservatives let the genie out of the bottle with their Brexit deal and they can’t put it back in.

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