Tag Archives: UK General election

Now here’s a thought. There has been a clear shift to the political right in the unexpectedly decisive outcome of the  UK’s general election (held on May 7th 2015) in which the Conservative party was returned to power with an overall majority 0f 331 seats, far larger than anyone, including the Conservatives, had expected. Might this  be a significant sign – albeit in one small country, bereft of its once-magnificent Empire but still playing a significant role on the world stage – that the Uranus/Pluto seven-pointed wave has peaked?

On March 16 2015, Uranus and Pluto formed an exact square aspect in the signs of Aries and Capricorn,  the final exact square in the long series of seven which began on June 24, 2012. As Steven Forrest pointed out in his March 2015 Newsletter which I featured on this site a few weeks ago,”… it is the first time both planets have been direct at the moment of the exact square…”

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It has been a very turbulent year in UK politics, the most interesting for decades. Scotland’s Independence Referendum on 18th September, which I wrote about in Uranus, Pluto and the Scottish Independence Referendum , attracted world-wide interest and admiration, not least for the 84% turnout from a passionately engaged electorate. 45% of our nation voted a resounding “Yes” – but a 55% majority voted “No”, carrying the day.

The day after the referendum came the shock of First Minister Alex Salmond’s resignation, with his Deputy Nicola Sturgeon taking charge of the Scottish National Party and the Scottish government. Since then there has been yet another unexpected turn of events: membership of the SNP has surged, and in the May 7 general election the highly competent and charismatic Sturgeon led her party to a stunning victory in Scotland, gaining 56 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the UK parliament, thereby annihilating the long-dominant Labour vote in Scotland.

So far, so Uranus/Pluto, it would seem. However, a closer look at the overall situation now pertaining in the UK Parliament may well be suggesting that we have hit peak Uranus/Pluto, and are now on the way down from its disruptive zenith.

Before the election, there being 650 parliamentary seats to play for, it was confidently predicted that there would be no outright majority. This being the case, the Scottish National Party with their expected 50-odd seats would be in the most powerful position by far of the smaller UK parties outwith the  historically dominant Conservative and Labour blocs alternating in power since the Second World War ended in 1945.

However, an overall Conservative majority greatly reduces the pre-election SNP potential threat to the stability and continuation of the United Kingdom as one nation. Although it has done stunningly well in Scotland, and will provide a very strong Scottish voice now in the UK parliament, the SNP is not in the power-broking position it would have been had the overall vote been less decisive, eg producing a Conservative or Labour minority government or a hung parliament.

S0 – what next? Scotland was promised more powers to run her own affairs before the referendum by a UK government desperate to preserve the Union. Although it may take some time to formalise, it looks likely that Scotland may gain full fiscal autonomy. This means that the Scottish Nationalist party will have to face that challenging gap which most of us face in life, either as individuals or nations, put most eloquently by T.S.Eliot in “The Hollow Men (1925) “:

“Between the Idea And the Reality… Falls the shadow”.

A recent example illustrates what very often occurs – especially in political life – when the Idea and the Reality collide. Five years ago, just before the last UK election which resulted in a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg having done extremely well in the TV debates preceding the General Election, was riding with his party on a wave of popularity. ‘Cleggmania’ briefly swept the nation.

Then, as part of the horsetrading which is the keynote of actual rather than theoretical politics, Clegg broke the Lib Dem promise to abolish university tuition fees. For this betrayal, as Lib Dem supporters saw it, Clegg and his party were never forgiven. In the 7 May 2015 election, the Lib Dems were reduced to 8 seats, and Nick Clegg has just resigned as leader of his party.

So – if the Uranus/Pluto square is already showing signs that it has peaked in its impact, that should serve as a warning to the Scottish Nationalist party. In the likely event of fiscal autonomy being granted, then the Idea and the ideals of greater social justice and a fairer society, combined with ‘an end to austerity’, which swept them to political dominance in Scotland, will be clashing with the Reality of the likelihood of at least some of the promises being made to the Scottish nation having to be broken as taxes go up, and cuts have to be implemented in order to balance the books.

If this happens, which in the real world seems likely, then their support could well begin to fade, and the dream of independence recede from the SNP’s grasp.

Meanwhile, in the UK as a whole, David Cameron has promised to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, which a significant number of  UK citizens (outwith Scotland which broadly wants to stay in) want to leave. However, in the recent general election UKIP, or the United Kingdom Independence Party, which had been building up an impressive head of steam before the election,  only gained one seat. Furthermore, its leader Nigel Farage failed to gain a parliamentary seat and has resigned.

This can be seen as another small but significant sign that the Uranus/Pluto square has peaked and is now slowly beginning to lose power. It may well be, when (and if, since politicians have a long track record of welshing on promises they very much do not want to keep) the in/out referendum is held on European Union membership, the UK population as a whole will feel safer remaining with the status quo.

Looking at the three horoscopes included in this post in broad brush stroke terms – no doubt there will be many detailed analyses of the UK’s interesting political landscape appearing in the weeks and months to come! – the relationship between the Nodal Axis and Uranus/Pluto greatly interests me, especially since my research study The Moon’s Nodes in Action is due to be published as a free ebook download on this site very shortly.

What I see in the Nodes/Uranus/Pluto relationship in our present world climate seems to validate the overall conclusions at which I arrived as a result of my research. To find out what this is, you will have to read the next post, coming up soon!

Zodiac

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1150 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2015

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