2017: The Year Europe Changed

Theresa May, the UK PM, has promised to initiate Brexit negotiations by the end of March. She’s not the usual sort of politician, in that she doesn’t say much, but when she does say something, she means it. We don’t have a birth time for her, but she has Saturn conjunct North Node, as well as square Moon and Venus, and sextile Mercury. 

She has a Saturnian personality: she is notoriously withheld, but wants to do a proper, detailed job. She has earned her position through being Home Secretary for 6 years, and popularity for her is secondary (Saturn square to Venus). So she has the right temperament for the job at hand, Brexit.

But subsequent to triggering article 50, we are likely to see a phoney Brexit for most of this year. For the UK, Brexit begins in earnest once Saturn goes direct in the autumn, leaving Sagittarius for good and entering Capricorn, where it will begin to hard aspect the UK Sun, Moon and Angles, all of which are in Cardinal signs.

This, of course, fits nicely with the waiting game we are likely to see until the French and German elections have been held, in the spring and autumn respectively. Until then, we will not really know who we are negotiating with, though there will continue to be posturing from both sides.

Europe is likely to see further shocks this year, as we experience the outcome of the Uranus-Pluto square, energised by the conjunction of Uranus to Eris. The dark underbelly of globalisation (those left without jobs and prospects as industry moves to cheaper countries, and as jobs become automated, and the problems caused by lack of sensible border controls) that Pluto has revealed, and that brought about Trump and Brexit, has yet to bring major political change to mainland Europe. 

This is because unlike the US and the UK, Europe has not had elections or referendums. Except Italy, which had a referendum on the constitution in December, that became a referendum on the EU and the Euro: the anti-vote won. That seems like a clear sign of the way things are going.

The Euro currency has an exact opposition between Mars and Eris (18.21 Libra/Aries), Mars ruling the 8^th House of shared wealth. So Mars is a key player. Saturn at 26 Aries, at the start of the 8^th, is also a major player. As Uranus completes his crossing of transiting Eris and moves on to natal Saturn this year, and as Pluto finishes with natal Mars/Eris, we are almost certain to see crises within the Eurozone, the 2 obvious contenders being Greece and Italy, both of whom have debt problems. It could easily result in one of them leaving the Eurozone.

The big events, however, are the French and German elections. Both countries (using their modern charts) are in the thick of Pluto or Neptune transits to major points: France has Pluto hard-aspecting her Asc, Node and Moon; Germany has Pluto hard-aspecting her Moon, Mars, Saturn, as well as Neptune conjoining the Asc.

So how can there not be major political change in these 2 countries, that reflects the anti-globalisation mood, and the EU’s part in bringing it about? The major symbol of these events, this new political mood, will be the fall of Angela Merkel in the autumn.

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She will be seen as a great leader, and as such her trajectory is in the stars: she was elected in 2005 as Pluto crossed the German Midheaven at 23 Sag, and continued as Pluto opposed the German Sun at 9 Cancer, and this year as Pluto finishes his business by squaring the German Moon. And so too will Merkel be finished as leader.

Mother Merkel (whose birthtime is approximate) has Sun at 24 Cancer, conjunct Uranus at 23 Cancer, showing the divided homeland she was born into, and which she experienced first-hand as a child when her family moved from West to East Germany. It is interesting with her Uranus that her job should be as a unifier, not just of Germany but of the EU. Her Sun-Uranus squares her Neptune-MC at 23-22 Libra. So this square, which is basic to her chart, has been under hard aspect from Uranus for a year or two (reflected in her waning popularity, much of it brought about by the immigrant surge which she, the caring Cancerian, oversaw.) Pluto will be approaching, rather than exactly aspecting her Sun-Moon, but that will be enough. She may, however, remain in politics for a few years after she loses the election, until the exact aspects have occurred.

The EU came into existence as the EEC in 1958. All the Angles were at 29 degrees of the mutable signs, which is the worst place to have them if you want something to last. The Euro currency has the same problem. Neptune won’t be exactly aspecting these points for another 7 years, but that is soon enough. In the case of the Euro, Neptune will exactly square the Moon (the member states) in 5 years.

So my prognosis is a dissolution of the EU in its current form, beginning with the start of the dissolution of the Euro over the next 2 or 3 years. And Brexit of 2016, followed by the French and German elections of 2017, will be seen as the key events which began this process. The rise of nationalist sentiment across the EU may mean that what the UK wants and what Europe wants are much more closely allied – ie more border controls, and devolution of power from Brussels -  and that will radically change the negotiating picture.

This easier climate for negotiation is reflected in Saturn’s passage across the major points of the UK chart, which will be complete in autumn 2020, and all over bar the shouting a year before that, after 2 years of serious negotiations.

The US, Pluto and Donald Trump

The last time we had a Uranus-Pluto square - the late20s/early 30s - much of the real shit happened afterwards in the form of the continuing Great Depression and the Second World War. The current square finished (in terms of exact crossings) 18 months ago. It's hard to second-guess these transits, but it could well be that the real outcome, the major events, will be in the coming years.

So far we have avoided a Great Depression. The loose monetary policy that led to our Great Recession was eerily similar to the last square, but this time we bailed out the banks. It was unfair the way the bankers got away with it, but only some of them: most bankers were ordinary people doing their jobs. It's also worth remembering that the banking system performs a vital function. Ultimately, it was the western governments, blinded by free market ideology, and in the pockets of the financial system, that was to blame.

But there is still a huge economic shift going on, called 'globalisation', in which wealth and the means of production are shifting to hitherto poor but populous countries like China and India. And in the West we are feeling it. Hence Trump and Brexit.

Pluto reveals that which is hidden, and things get hidden because we don't want to look at them, and that means they often come out in a painful, disruptive way. But better out than in. One factor in the Brexit vote was the protest by areas in the north of England, whose 'inefficient' industries had been shut down under Thatcher, and which have never recovered. The reasoning behind the vote was that the EU represents the same sort of capitalism as is found in the UK, and what has it ever done for them? In fact, with the free movement of workers, things could only get worse from their point of view. I think it's hard to argue against this point, rooted as it is in hard experience. This doesn't make Brexit itself right or wrong. But it does mean that something that wasn't previously addressed has made its voice heard.

And it's the same sort of thing with the Trump vote in the US. There is a whole section of the population that has become poorer due to de-industrialisation and globalisation, and only Mr Trump is addressing that. Pluto is at the end of opposing the US Sun, and Trump is Pluto personified: unreasonable, unignorable, a powerful force, who even resonates with the Pluto myth of female abduction.

But he is there for a reason, which is a section of the population that has been ignored by politicians. And why have these people been ignored? It seems to me that to address their real grievances, the nature of the capitalist system under which we live would have to be addressed. And that ain't going to happen easily, US politicians being famously in the pockets of the big corporations. And with a heavy disguise of right-wing ideology to go with it.

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So what Trump stands for is a protest against the globalised capitalism under which we live, in which corporations can outsource to the cheapest country, regardless of consequences at home or working conditions abroad, and in which the gap between rich and poor is growing.

And I think this can be missed about Trump, because the man is so awful and so unfit to govern: there is something real going on, a move away from the free market capitalism of the last 35 years, towards protectionism. That, I think, will be one of the meanings of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn a few years down the line.

Protectionism, in which countries protect their own industries and products from cheaper products from abroad, has a bad name. It has a bad name because it stops the powerful countries from extending their reach. But 'developing' countries need to be protectionist. America itself was in the early days.

Brexit and the rise of Trump may be seen in 10 years time as the first fractures in the current globalising economy.

The US is at the end of Pluto opposite Sun, and in the middle of Neptune square Ascendant. So it's big stuff. The Neptune transit describes, for one thing, the susceptibility to an ideologue like Trump. But with Sag Rising, it also suggests some kind of search for meaning. The US will soon give way to China as the world's wealthiest nation. Being number one has been an important part of who America is for the last 100 years. So who will she be now? This is why Trump talks in terms of 'making America great again': it is a crude way of addressing that gradual loss of identity.

And in about 5 years the US will have her first Pluto return, in the 2nd House: a review of that incredible resourcefulness that quickly made her the world's wealthiest and most powerful country. America is still a young nation, she has only ever known success. And she still has that pioneering, survival-mode mentality that Pluto in the 2nd also describes. It will be very good for her to be knocked off the top spot, it may bring thoughtfulness and reflection and loss of naivety.

Back in January, before the American primaries began, I predicted that Trump would be the Republican candidate, and the next President. It looks like I was right on the first prediction, and wrong on the second. But assuming he loses, America will still be left with a lot of soul-searching, as is only right for a major Pluto transit. The rise of Trump has for many been a trauma, a shock. It shows how crude, how prejudiced, how gullible many Americans are, and how that constituency and all it stands for came so close to running the country. It also, maybe, shows how desperate many Americans are, that they would support such a man. Pluto opposite Sun has revealed a wound in the country that, once the dust has settled, will need to be addressed.