The first three defectors from the Tory Party – Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston – timed their exit for maximum impact on Theresa May just before PMQ and (yet another) Brussels visit.
Soubry was trenchant in her criticism of Theresa May and her handling of Brexit. “I think she is in a bad place. I don’t mean this in a cruel way, but I think she is absolutely delusional about the situation that she and this country are in. I don’t think she is a bad person. I just don’t think she is awfully good at the job, to be honest. I thought she would be a really good safe pair of hands on the tiller. I think we now know that she had these two pretty ghastly special advisers who basically were the hands on the tiller. Without them she is absolutely all at sea.” Reassuring.
Soubry, 7 December 1956, is a Sun Sagittarius with an adventurous, opportunistic Mars in Aries opposition Jupiter square Mercury in Sagittarius – outspoken, overly-excitable. All the more so since her Mars is on the focal point of a Yod inconjunct Neptune sextile Pluto, so has lessons to learn about her overly-impulsive approach. She looks generally slumped this year with tr Neptune square her Sun and square her Mars/Pluto till late in the year. A few blips upwards cancelled out by major setbacks; with a generally disheartening outlook towards 2022/23.
Heidi Allen, 18 January 1975, is a late Sun Capricorn in a rebellious square to Uranus in Scorpio; and a tough-minded Saturn square Pluto. Again she’s sagging through this year with an underwhelming, dashed-hopes tr Neptune conjunct her Jupiter plus plus other disappointments. Nothing much cheerful until 2022 onwards.
Sarah Wollaston, 17 February 1962, is an enthusiastic Sun Jupiter in Aquarius with her Sun conjunct Venus in Pisces and opposition Uranus – charming and rebellious; with a hard-edged Mars Mercury Saturn in Aquarius square Neptune. She looks blocked in at the moment, seriously jangled in June onwards with tr Uranus square her Saturn; with catastrophes in 2020. So not exactly on top of the world either.
Divorce in haste, repent at leisure.
My Spirit guide keeps telling me Corbyn will be in distress in April. Looking at your previous threads on him I’m convinced he will either resign, be forced out or a huge Labour split – much bigger than we expect is going to happen then.
Matthew Parris, normally a middle-of-the-roader, is on excoriating form in this morning’s Times (behind paywall).
‘Jeremy Corbyn – is a politician of low intellectual calibre which, alloyed with rigid and obstinately held ideological beliefs, renders him stupefied, or stupid, or both.’
‘Theresa May – is the Death Star of modern British politics. She’s the theory of anti-matter, made flesh. She’s a political black hole because nothing, not even light, can escape. Ideas, beliefs, suggestions, objections, inquiries, proposals, projects, loyalties, affections, trust, whole careers, real men and women, are sucked into the awful void that is Downing Street — and nothing ever comes out: no answers, only a blank so blank that it screams. Warnings are delivered to her, and ignored. Plans are run by her, unacknowledged. Messages are sent to her, unanswered. She has become the unperson of Downing Street: the living embodiment of the closed door.’
When it all collapses – T May’s government I mean – there’ll be a tale to tell and much analysis of her pathology.
How did the UK ever get to this stage?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/theresa-may-has-turned-conservative-discord-into-aschism-0btbdk80q
Well the Tory Party effectively chose her so they only have themselves to blame. Parris being an ardent Remainer is also essentially talking his ‘book’ and it should be noted that it is they along with the hard Brexiteers who have been joining Corbyn’s Labour Party to vote down May’s deal. It is all very well some politicians and pundits insisting on the UK avoiding a No Deal Brexit but that possibility is made more and more likely by politicians like themselves insisting on dictating the terms to everyone else.
A plague on all their houses I say.
What this farce reveals is not just the weakness of the respective party leaders or indeed the current party system but the whole institution of government. Tinkering about with MP groupings is not going to fix that.
My personal belief is that whatever happens next month will be revisited in a few years, particularly as Neptune in Pisces is not that supportive of hard binary choices.
A plague indeed. But what an awful thought – Neptune in Pisces till 2025 – we’ll all have died of boredom by that time if it trails endlessly on.
Echoes of the Kings Great Matter under Henry VIII I think. His separation from Catherine of Aragon and eventual marriage to Ann Boleyn took years to achieve. Cardinal Wolsey filled the Theresa May role back then spending ages pointlessly negotiating with the Papacy. One thing to note is that the logjam started to move as Neptune moved into the last decan of Pisces in 1529. That was the time that Wolsey fell from power. Even then the process of the divorce did not complete until 1533.
What we need is a party – a real party – not some Limited Company set up through a shell company in Panama with secret donors – which unites and represents the people. Not some Big Business funded machine, nor one that represents a select few at the expense of everyone else. This is what the British people are crying out for. I don’t see anything even remotely resembling this amongst any of the politicians we have at present. With the Saturn-Pluto super conjunction nearing, I suspect those representing the interests the secretive super-elite of will continue to consolidate their grip on our political systems. The new party (correction: ‘Limited Company’ – that says it all, doesn’t it?) seems to me the perfect expression of this energy.
Very interesting as always Marjorie.
I assume these are midday charts as we don’t know the birth times of these MPs or their house placements.
My birth date is only just under two weeks before Soubry so we have very similar shaped charts though with some key differences. Speaking from experience that Mars Jupiter opposition can lead to impulsive decision making and biting off more than you chew often followed by repentance at leisure. Whether this is a case in point remains to be seen.
I think it is important to draw a distinction between the Conservative and Labour rebels.
Despite Soubry’s criticisms of Theresa May the Tory rebels are really focused on the handling of Brexit. On all other policy issues I don’t see Theresa May’s government has diverted that radicall from the preceding administration under David Cameron.
The reason for Labour MPs breaking away are much more diverse and I am not sure that the potential split with the EU is even their main grievance with Corbyn. Much of it is replaying the split between the left and right of the Labour Party that can be traced back through the Gang of Four to Gaitskell and even further. It is essentially a battle to own the Labour brand and to define what it stands for.
I think there is an argument for the revival of the “Butskellist” post war British consensus but it has to be something more than the ‘Thatcher lite’ politics of the likes of Tony Blair. I don’t see much evidence yet of any serious attempt by the rebels to set out what is their vision for the future of the UK. We know what we don’t like but apart from Brexit are not much wiser about what they would put in its place. In particular I want to hear how they propose to unite a clearly divided country. That is going to take more than defeating the government in Parliamentary votes. Simply wanting to turn the clock back to before the Referendum of June 2016 and to pretend nothing has changed is not enough. Unfortunately, I suspect that is really all they have to offer.
But all the abandoned centrists in the country and those with any appreciation of why Brexit happened very much hope it does. Talking down people’s brave actions is no way to help them succeed.
Talking down how? Were you hoping for something more positive in the coming transits? Unfortunately that’s the way it goes sometimes, although transits don’t in themselves predict failure, just that the conditions are stormier than ideal, which brings extra risks.
To be fair, some of the breakaway MPs on both sides either had very slim majorities or were at risk of deselection, so perhaps calculated that they didn’t have much to lose.
Thank you for this, very interesting. Uranus seems to be gearing up to bring us rebellious centrists (or centrists triggering rebellions on the other side of the Channel) as it moves back to Taurus. The astrology suggests similarities, but ultimately a decision made for quite different reasons.
First thought is that Sarah Wollaston has an extraordinarily fixed chart with no cardinal at all (unless the moon is actually in Cancer), I doubt she makes many decisions in haste, however sudden and surprising they seem. However, you can see how joining a loose alliance of independent MP’s wouldn’t phase her. Her retrograde Mercury suggests her political career was going to have some sort of different second act. She has some heavy transits coming over the next few years.
The more firey Anna Soubry I think is the only one I’ve heard speak, though at first she gave me the impression of a solid conventional, Middle England, grammar school Tory. I wouldn’t have thought “rebel”. She only has one planet in cardinal, but that planet happens to be Mars at 0 Aries, so impulsive or very brave. She has had a very broad career in journalism, law and now politics, as befits her Sagittarian planets, as well as the mutual reception she has between Mercury and Jupiter. So, I can also see how the idea of a broader, independent group would appeal to her, especially as the party becomes narrower in it’s philosophy.
Heidi Allen has more cardinal placements, but has a chart low in Earth. Her only Earth is the Sun in late Capricorn, so having a clearly defined sense of identity is the rock that keeps her grounded. This is something that comes from the self rather than the group, but maybe she has only just realised this about herself. She has a Jupiter/Neptune mutual reception (if you follow modern rulerships), which has been receiving hits from both transiting Jupiter and Neptune – perhaps a crisis and change in philosophy. She has recently been on an anti-austerity tour. Her Mercury/Venus conjunction suggests someone who likes to link their personal values to their vocation, in Aquarius there may be a sudden change that takes them or (more likely) others by surprise. Her early career would’ve been coloured by Uranus and Neptune transits to the Mercury/Venus conjunction.
sad to see it looks like their move might not come to anything.