Deal or No Deal? A Card’s Eye View.

Oh no. Oh yes, we’re talking about Brexit. This blog is about divination, not politics or social commentary, and many practitioners of divination, besides conducting personal readings, are bound to look through their lens at affairs of public life.

Everyone does forecasting or predicting. Humanity is hard-wired that way for survival. Everyone. If you feel you know which way this is all going, you are speculating which is to say, predicting. Knowing what is your prescience and what may instead be wishful thinking, may be harder to judge. The same for readers too, who must beware a) their own fallibility and b) their personal biases in interpretation. For the most honest answer possible, the reader needs to stay like stone while shuffling and drawing their cards.

What are the bookies saying? Hardly surprisingly, it’s a shifting picture. Some think the UK will remain in the EU after 2019. But then again, the bookies did not predict the Leave result in the Referendum. This from The Guardian, Patrick Collinson, 24 June 2016:

In a candid statement, Ladbrokes’ head of political betting, Matthew Shaddick, said: “The truth is that bookies do not offer markets on political events to help people forecast the results. We do it to turn a profit (or at least not lose too much) and in that respect, this vote worked out very well for us.

“Nobody at Ladbrokes’ HQ will be criticising the predictive powers of our odds, they’ll be looking at the money we made.”

More than £40m was gambled in the biggest political betting event in British history.

William Hill said one woman in central London placed her first ever bet by putting £100,000 on the UK voting to stay, while another woman, from Kingston, south-west London, gambled for the first time by staking £10,000 on leave.

Here are the playing cards I drew around this question 12 August 2018.

The cards are shuffled and drawn blind. The most basic rule of interpretation is:-

Red suit cards indicate a yes answer

Black suit cards indicate a no answer….particularly if these are spades.

Will UK leave the EU with an agreed deal?

It is looking highly likely that it will not. Let’s read it as a story-line, left to right.

3 Clubs. Lively discussions, confrontations, a 3- way deal.

Ace Spades. Endings. New beginnings. Lines drawn.

10 Spades. Nadir. Betrayal. Despondency. Despair. A large body of water.

6 Clubs. Back in the saddle. Teamwork. Negotiation. Achievement.

4 Diamonds. This last red card on the line could still turn it into a last minute deal. Financial stability. a strongbox. A cheque book. This is financial conservatism…either UK pays out for the sake of diplomacy in the event of a non-deal so as to minimise the rocking of the boat or else decides to hang on to more of its own money.

What is the likelihood of a No Deal?

At first glance this is looking highly likely; 1 black suit card (no) and 4 red suit cards (yes).

Let’s look at the story-line.

Page Swords, spies, secret communications, legal advice, bad news, dark thoughts, skulduggery, espionage (No! Really?)

6 Diamonds, Research, technology, diagnostics, shyness. The PM is very clever, some fear deceitful, but she is rather shy. This may have added to a few problems in the face of the various manifestations of the ‘page of swords’ – in-house opposition to her stated brief.

6 Hearts, courage, trust, armed forces, all things regarded as ‘typically masculine’

8 Diamonds, utmost caution, balancing books, taxation matters, influential person wearing glasses (several come to mind both sides of the table)

Ace Diamonds, Fresh start, important document, life force, fire, new lease of life.

BUT, for utmost impartiality, at risk of fudging the system, let’s just zoom the lens out, reading both lines as a single story, paragraph one and paragraph two.

Now we have a total of 5 black no cards and 5 red yes cards, and we end up with a row of reds.

Bluffs are being called on both sides. The UK perhaps is doing less calling of bluffs and a deal takes two. There was a reason a referendum came to be called in the first place, after David Cameron’s bluff was called.

Read this way a deal could still happen, and if it does it will be almost last minute, viewing the cards as a kind of graph line where the black cards are succeeded by a row of red cards…look at it as a rising graph line. There is something here that does not line up clearly. There may be a delay or a last minute offer by either side.

Whichever way it goes in the end, for all the rage and worry on both sides, UK and EU, Leave voters and Remain voters, and the undoubtedly dirty machinations and toxicity of this process, and however I look at my cards, as separate lines or as a sequence of continuation, the ‘end’ card, the Ace of Spades appeared early on, representing severance and separation while the Ace of Diamonds is the ultimate final card in this spread. Fresh start, important document, life force, fire, new lease of life

It will not be business as before, whichever way it goes. I think we’re out, no second referendum, but I’m not sure that even if it is a hard Brexit, leaving on WTO rules, that it will happen on the 29 March. There is a strong suggestion that this is not a finality.

I feel the cards were also foreshadowing the recent events of Salzburg. This is a card of betrayal and assassination. Character assassination, political assassination, M Macron may prove to have overplayed his hand.

For the UK the Ace of Diamonds of a No Deal outcome is being shown to me as a far higher, therefore more desirable card of prosperity than the Four of Diamonds of the Deal outcome scenario. Mr Carney’s fears will not prove justified, bar an inevitable period of disturbance and re-adjustment.

Any Ace trumps any other card any time. There is plenty wrong in the UK, and plenty that needs to be done better. But I am not seeing that if the UK does go the way of the open seas, via a ‘hard Brexit’, that it is then on a heading to…