BORIS JOHNSON (AGAIN): URANIAN BEGINNINGS and THE INFLUENCE OF JUPITER-NEPTUNE

You might have noticed that I keep returning to the question of whether Boris Johnson will survive as PM in the longer term. The recent vote of confidence, in which 40% of his MPs voted against him, has damaged him hugely. Neither Theresa May nor John Major lasted very long after 'winning' theirs. For Johnson, it is not just a matter of 40% of his MPS voting against him: it is also a matter of how many of the ones who voted to keep him also had strong reservations? 

The basic principle of astrology is that beginnings contain the map of the future. Leaders who last a long time are generally powered through their time in office by major transits from the start, and leave office when those transits come to an end.

If we look at the transits to the charts of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, the two long-lasting PMs of recent history, it can be seen that they had powerful transits when they first became PM.

Margaret Thatcher had Pluto conjoining her Sun, Saturn conjoining her MC and Uranus conjoining her Asc. 

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And Tony Blair had Neptune conjoining his Midheaven and Pluto opposite his Asc. What more do you want for powerful beginnings?

 

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Boris Johnson, by contrast, was merely at the tail-end of an opposition from Uranus to his Moon, which rules his Midheaven, and Saturn opposite his MC. There was gravitas required of him (Saturn) but also creativity (Uranus). And there was the concomitant instability of Uranus. It was more like he was there for a specific reason and time. He certainly didn't have the major Neptune and/or Pluto transits powering him forward that Thatcher and Blair had.

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He came in at a very unsettled time, while Parliament was paralysed over the Brexit legislation. His time as PM has been characterised by Uranus: he quickly won an election and on that basis moved Brexit on speedily. But then Covid and lockdown happened, and now there is the cost of living crisis, as well as the crisis over his leadership. There has been crisis management, but little stability.

This autumn his major transits begin. Pluto will start moving towards an almost exact square with his Scorpio Moon, and Saturn towards his second Saturn Return. These will probably be the defining transits of his downfall, because it was transits to the Moon and from Saturn that began his premiership. They could, technically, speak of renewal, especially with Neptune coming up to square his Sun soon afterwards. But given the importance of beginnings in astrology for characterising what comes later, I think it means the end of this unstable period and of his time as PM. Johnson was elected in an emergency, when a particular issue was pressing, and then another, and he was able to deal with them. That is the achievement he will be remembered for. He seized the helm at a time of huge transition and successfully negotiated its first stage.

But he will also reap the consequences (Saturn Return) of what many have felt to be a personal betrayal (Pluto squaring his Scorpio Moon) by allowing partying among his staff to continue regularly during lockdown. 

Exactly when he will go is not clear to me. But I think something could happen this autumn as Pluto and Saturn go Direct. 

A further piece of astrology is the influence of the Jupiter-Neptune opposition in Johnson's natal chart. The reason I mention it is because Uranus had just made his first pass over the Jupiter end of it when the vote of confidence, which was a sudden event, occurred. So it is clearly implicated. Uranus will make two more passes over his Jupiter-Neptune between now and March 2023. My guess is that he will go sometime between late Jan 2023, when Uranus goes Direct, and early March, when he crosses Jupiter for the 3rd time.

I hadn't previously considered Johnson's Jupiter-Neptune, because it doesn't make much in the way of personal aspects. But it clearly contributes to him being the larger than life character, full of big promises, that he is. Johnson has a heavily tenanted 9th House, of which Jupiter is the natural ruler. Also, he is a public figure, enmeshed with the collective, and I think in that situation the less personal planets (and Jupiter is on the edge of the personal: along with Saturn it used to be one of the 2 great mundane planets) can be seen as players in their own right. The part that Johnson's free-floating Jupiter-Neptune has played in the no-confidence vote has been a point of astrological interest for me, and a pointer towards using those planets towards an understanding of the whole of his public life.