英國若退歐布萊爾難辭其咎
It is fashionable to blame Tony Blair for everything. To some in the Labour party, the former prime minister took it on a neoliberal detour and lost 5m votes between 1997 and 2010. To others gleefully awaiting the Chilcot report, he is a war criminal who deserves to be tried at The Hague. These aspersions are wrong, but there is one matter we can hold Mr Blair responsible for. If Britain votes to leave the EU on June 23, he should arguably shoulder a good deal of the blame.
把一切問題都歸咎於託尼•布萊爾(Tony Blair)是件時髦之事。在工黨(Labour party)的一些人士看來，這位英國前首相領導該黨走了一段新自由主義的彎路，而且在1997至2010年間丟掉了500萬張選票。在興奮地等待齊爾考特(Chilcot)調查報告出爐的其他工黨人士眼裏，布萊爾是一名應在海牙(The Hague)接受審判的戰爭犯。雖然這些非難言過其實，但在一件事上布萊爾負有責任。如果6月23日英國在公投中贊成退出歐盟(EU)，可以說，布萊爾應承擔相當大的責任。
It all goes back to 2004, when the EU was significantly enlarged with the accession of several eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Unlike the Germans, Mr Blair unwisely decided against imposing transitional controls on freedom of movement for these new EU citizens. His government predicted that enlargement would see 13,000 people a year coming to Britain. The number ended up being closer to 170,000 a year.
這一切可以追溯至2004年，當時，歐盟進行了一次大規模擴張，正式納入包括波蘭、匈牙利、捷克在內的多個東歐國家。與德國人不同，布萊爾非常不明智地反對對這些新歐盟公民的自由遷徙實施過渡性控制措施。布萊爾政府當時預計，歐盟此輪擴大將導致每年有1.3萬移民進入英國。但這一數字最終達到每年接近17萬人。
As a Financial Times editorial piece argued recently, Mr Blair “seriously underestimated the number of east Europeans who would come to Britain” and his mishandling of the EU’s eastward expansion created the widespread notion that immigration is out of control.
正如英國《金融時報》最近一篇社論所言，布萊爾“嚴重低估了可能來到英國的東歐人數量”，他在歐盟東擴問題上處理失當造成了移民已經失控的普遍觀念。
Over the past 12 years, politicians have tried to grapple with this issue — David Cameron’s ill-advised pledge to reduce net migration to below 100,000 a year is just the latest example of this. Brexit campaigners have found success by using these failed promises as a stick with which to beat their opponents.
過去12年間，政治家們一直試圖解決這一問題——首相戴維•卡梅倫(David Cameron)倉促承諾將每年淨移民人數減至10萬以下只是其中最新一例。退歐陣營人士發現，利用這些未兌現的承諾作爲打擊對手的武器非常有效。
Mr Blair, meanwhile, has shown no remorse for his actions. In an interview last year, he addressed the issue of transitional controls head on: “All we did was bring forward what would have happened anyway. In 2004 the economy was booming and we had a requirement for skilled workers from abroad. Supposing you put all those people from eastern Europe back out of Britain again, would we be a stronger, better country? The answer is no.” But Mr Blair failed to acknowledge that if the UK had waited until other countries opened themselves to the new Eastern EU members, the beachhead would not have existed and so the relative attractions of the UK to migrants would have been smaller.
與此同時，布萊爾並未對自己的行爲表現出任何自責。去年接受採訪時，他正面回答了關於過渡性控制措施的問題：“我們所做的不過是將無論如何都會發生的事情提前了而已。2004年，英國經濟一片繁榮，我們需要來自國外的熟練工人。如果將所有這些東歐移民再次趕出英國，我們國家會變得更強大、更美好嗎？答案是不可能。”但布萊爾並未認識到，如果英國能等到其他國家向新的東部成員國開放邊界時再作決定，英國就不會成爲移民的橋頭堡，英國對移民的相對吸引力也會小一些。
If June 23 does become Britain’s “Independence Day”, as some Leave campaigners have described it, there will be a long hit list of people who will be blamed. Mr Cameron will be near the top, for calling the referendum in the first place and for backing the losing side. Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition leader, will also be in trouble, thanks to his lackadaisical attitude during the referendum campaign. But amid the apportioning of praise and blame to our current political leaders, we should remember one from the past who accidentally stoked the fires of anti-immigration sentiment in the first place.
如果6月23日真像一些退歐陣營人士形容的那樣成爲英國“獨立日”，該責備的人可以填滿一長串名單。卡梅倫將在靠近榜首的位置，因爲是他首先提出進行公投，同時對可能失敗的一方表示支持。反對黨領袖傑里米•科爾賓(Jeremy Corbyn)也將因在此次公投運動期間漫不經心的態度而遭遇麻煩。但在對現任政治領導人的功過進行評價的同時，我們也應該記住在往屆領導人中有一位從一開始就無意間助長了反移民情緒。
