UK Labour Party breakaway – the old politics are broken

      

 

A breakaway group of 7 MPs have abandoned the Labour Party because of concerns over Corbyn’s handling of Brexit, far-left bullying and anti-Semitism.  They have set themselves up as an independent group with Chuka Umunna saying that the old, tribal politics were broken and inviting others across party lines to join them.  He said ‘If you’re sick and tired of politics-as-usual, well, so are we.’ And so say most of the electorate who are wondering how to junk the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition both at the same time soonest.

The breakaway group was announced at 10.13am, which isn’t too inspiring a chart with two planets and the midheaven in the final anarectic degree and an Aquarius Sun with an identity problem. Umunna himself, 17 October 1978, doesn’t look overly confident until at least 2021/22.

The Labour Party 27 February 1900 chart is certainly in a downward slide of panicky failure at the moment with Solar Arc Mars conjunct the Neptune. The 12 February 1906 Labour Party chart is facing a nosedive and a series of jolts and jangles in 2020 but getting its mojo back in 2022/23.

Corbyn’s relationship with both Labour charts looks pressured and separated through this year.

Not that the Tories are getting away unscathed since the hard-line Brexiteers are pushing for deselection of MPs not deemed in line with their objectives.

The Conservative Party, 10 May 1912, is mired in confusion this year, continuing on from last with tr Pluto opposition the Neptune and tr Pluto also in a dreary and discouraging trine to Saturn this year and next; with even more intense and hostile debates than heretofore come this April onwards, on and off till late 2020.

Theresa May has an iron grip on this chart though with indications of considerable strain – from a composite Sun Pluto inconjunct Saturn. That has been creaking mightily recently with tr Uranus square the composite Sun Pluto. From early March tr Uranus opposes the composite Jupiter, followed in May by tr Uranus opposition the composite Uranus – which could be seen as great relief all round – so maybe she’ll exit after the March 29th cut off date. Failing that tr Uranus reruns to oppose the Uranus late in the year and into early 2020.

18 thoughts on “UK Labour Party breakaway – the old politics are broken

  1. The history of the British SDP makes sobering reading. There were over 20 MPs involved that breakaway in 1981. Most of them did not survive the 1983 General Election. The other problem facing middle ground rebels is the fact the centre of British politics already has a long established party – the Liberal Democrats – occupying that ground.

  2. All 8 ex Labour MPs are vocal supporters of Israel, a country widely held by many to be a human rights disaster area. For them to complain about Anti Semitism while allying themselves so closely to an apartheid and ethic cleansing regime is deeply ironic to say the least

      • Supporting ongoing Israeli brutality while condemning AS is hypocritical. State legislated apartheid is a much more egregious offence to my mind.

    • It says nothing good about our politicians across the board that they are and always have been incapable of tackling the Palestinian problem head on in a persistent way. Occasionally they pop their heads above the parapet to criticize and then get shot down by Israel government spokesmen. But flipping over into anti-Semitic rhetoric and consorting with Holocaust deniers isn’t any kind of an answer. I don’t think successive Israeli governments (from square one) and supporters of their draconian policies have done themselves any favours, but that’s no excuse for outsiders to slide into mindless, over generalised attacks on an entire race.

  3. Another MP has quit Labour to join The Independent Group, while rumour (Twitter) has it that three Conservative MPs (Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen) will join them today.

  4. I wonder if someone knew something about Astrology…the company behind them is called Gemini A Ltd and we do have Gemini on the Ascendant!

  5. My spirit guide see’s Corbyn at breaking point in April. I don’t know whether this is further split or him deciding to stand down to stop a further split. Is there anything that stands out on Corbyn’s personal chart for April?

  6. For the Tories, “with even more intense and hostile debates than heretofore come this April onwards, on and off till late 2020”, suggests that May gets her deal through and the Tories then divide even more viciously over the future relationship. Such as whether to give up fishing access to the EU in return for (perhaps more privileged) access to the EU market, joint sovereignty over Gibraltar, etc.

    “From early March tr Uranus opposes the composite Jupiter, followed in May by tr Uranus opposition the composite Uranus – which could be seen as great relief all round – so maybe she’ll exit after the March 29th cut off date.” Or possibly that she gets an extension till June 2019 to get her deal through and the deal gets through in May 2019.

    As an aside, Marjorie, a person who had predicted a new party being formed this year also predicted that there will be a General Election in June and that the main fight will be the Tories vs this new party. Do you see anything on the cards for a GE any time this year?

    Finally, is it not astonishing that apart from the new party, both May and Corbyn have planets in the Anaretic Degree? Whichever way we look at it, we are at the end of an era.

    • “Whichever way we look at it, we are at the end of an era.”

      I agree with you here. It doesn’t matter whether this breakaway group is successful or not. Others will certainly follow.

    • This party does indeed reflect the end of an era but perhaps not in the way its creators imagine. Most of the UKs current political have their origins in the financial crisis of 2008. This caused a collapse of the neoliberal economic consensus that had existed since Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979 and continued by New Labour under Blair. The problem for this breakaway party is that there solution for the crisis engendered in 2008 is essentially to rerun the political, economic and social policies that led to that crisis. By any criteria that is a bizarre suggestion and no amount of hyping the party by the media is going to change that fact.

      Corbyn might be equally anachronistic in peddling another failed model from the past but at least it is an alternative not just a retread of Blairism. Moreover, Corbyn has the advantage that memories of the labour disputes of the 1970s have passed out of popular memory. There are no coal miners to go on strike as the mines were shut. Similarly, most of the other public sector jobs involved in the Winter of Discontent were privatised years ago.

      The UK desperately needs new political and economic ideas but I don’t see it coming from this group of rebel MPs who are simply Westminster insiders. The fact the party is currently registered in Panama and its backers are secret really reflects that Uranus and Mars in the 12 th. I don’t think people any longer have any enthusiasm for these manufacturered parties which incidentally is why France,where they are prevalent, is also in crisis.

  7. Surely, we have been down this road before with the SDP Gang of Four in 1981 (formed 26 March 1981). These attempts by MPs to ‘reshape British politics’ nearly always seem to occur when the participants jobs and career ambitions are under threat. Maybe I am getting cynical in my old age but this kind of vanguardist approach to politics where a small leadership group be it the current UK government, Corbyn’s cronies or this self appointed group of ‘rebels’ claims to be able to take people to the promised land is wearing a bit thin. Like most UK voters I am getting tired of solutions authored in the elite environment of Westminster.

    • “Maybe I am getting cynical in my old age but this kind of vanguardist approach to politics where a small leadership group be it the current UK government, Corbyn’s cronies or this self appointed group of ‘rebels’ claims to be able to take people to the promised land is wearing a bit thin.”

      I do not think this is about “taking people to the promised land”. I think most British people, Brexiters or Remainers, are infinititely less deluded than politicians. With the bunch currently leading political debate, it really won’t take much for people to get behind a “third option”. It has already happened in France, with Macron, who was most definitely elite, and in Italy, with Salvini, who ranted against lazy Southeners for two decades and is now leading polls South of Rome. And it did, arguably, happen in The US, with GOP completely surrendering their agenda to a guy who they laughed at only 4 years ago.

      If the past couple of years have taught us anything, it should be that it doesn’t take a political genius to change the whole political landscape of a country. Just be at the right place, at the right time. It could be the right time now (see Full Moon)…

      • I would have thought a New Moon would be the time to launch a new political party not a Full Moon. Anyway I have no faith in any of the western worlds current leadership models. Rebranding soap powder does not stop it being soap. Maybe Frank Zappa was right and that politics is simply the comedy arm of the military industrial complex.

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