移民问题可能影响英国退欧公投结果

In the referendum campaign on Britain’s membership of the EU, each side has one trump card that they will play repeatedly until voting day on June 23. The Remain camp will talk about the economy. The Leavers will talk about immigration.

在决定英国是否留在欧盟(EU)内的公投前的造势活动中，双方各有一张王牌；在6月23日的投票日之前，双方都会反复打出自己的那张王牌。留欧阵营会谈经济。退欧阵营则会谈移民。

Many diehard Remainers regard the Leave campaign’s stress on immigration as proof that it is a movement that ultimately rests on racism and xenophobia. But immigration is a legitimate issue in this campaign. Indeed, the Leave side would be stupid not to use it since, when voters are asked to name their concerns, they regularly put immigration at the top of the list. In 2015, net migration to the UK hit 333,000, the second-highest number on record, with about half that number coming from the EU.

许多死忠的留欧派人士认为，退欧运动对移民问题的强调，证明退欧运动归根结底根植于种族主义和仇外心理。但移民是这场“去留之争”中的一个合理问题。事实上，退欧阵营如果不利用这个问题就太愚蠢了，因为选民们在被问到担忧哪些问题时，通常会把移民问题放在问题名单的首位。2015年，进入英国的净移民人数达到了33.3万，这是有纪录以来第二高的数字；这个数字中约一半来自欧盟。

For the Leave campaign, immigration from Europe is a gift because it perfectly captures three of the themes that the “Outers” most like to stress: loss of sovereignty, the faulty judgment of elites and the difficulty of achieving meaningful reform of the EU.

对退欧运动来说，来自欧洲的移民是天赐的良机，因为这些移民完美地体现了三个主题：主权的丧失，精英的错误判断以及欧盟很难实现有意义的改革。这3个主题正是退欧派人士最喜欢强调的若干主题中的3个。

Hardcore Eurosceptics in the Conservative party have been complaining about loss of sovereignty for decades. But the things that enraged them, such as the EU’s working time directive, are not the sorts of issues that normal people lose sleep over.

保守党中的铁杆疑欧论者数十年来一直在抱怨英国丧失了主权。但激怒他们的事情，比如欧盟的《工作时间指令》(working time directive)，并不是会让普通人夜不能寐的那种问题。

By contrast, immigration provides a meaningful practical example of what “loss of sovereignty” actually entails. After the arrival of more than 1m migrants from eastern Europe over the past decade, some British voters wanted to call a halt. That put David Cameron, the prime minister, in the awkward position of having to explain that the UK government is powerless to control the flow of migrants from the rest of the EU. The EU’s rules on the free movement of people mandate that all EU citizens have the right to live and work anywhere within the 28-country bloc.

相反，移民则提供了一个有意义的现实例子，反映出“丧失主权”实际上到底意味着什么。在过去10年超过100万东欧移民来到英国以后，一些英国选民如今想要对移民叫停。这让英国首相戴维•卡梅伦(David Cameron)处于一种尴尬的境地，他不得不向民众解释，英国政府其实无力控制来自欧盟其他地方的移民流入。欧盟的人员自由流动规则规定，所有欧盟公民都有权在欧盟28个成员国中的任何地方生活和工作。

One of the basic characteristics of a nation state has traditionally been the right to decide who can live in the country and enjoy the benefits of citizenship. Many voters instinctively feel that this is the way it should still be. But that traditional sovereign right has indeed been sacrificed (or pooled, if you prefer) by EU members.

民族国家的一个基本特征就是，有权决定谁能在这个国家生活并享有公民福利。许多选民本能地认为事情如今仍应如此。但欧盟成员国实际上已经牺牲了（如果你愿意，也可以说是共享了）这种传统的主权。

The British government’s failure to anticipate the scale of migration from eastern Europe has also fed the public’s scepticism about official pronouncements on the EU. Just before the enlargement of the EU in 2004 to include 10 new members, the government predicted that an average of 13,000 migrants a year would move to Britain from the newly extended bloc. In the event, the figure was more than 10 times that. After this miscalculation, it is hardly surprising if the public now reacts sceptically to government figures about the economic impact of leaving the EU.

英国政府当年未能预料到东欧移民的规模，这也催生了公众对有关欧盟的官方意见持怀疑态度。就在欧盟2004年扩大，纳入10个新成员前不久，英国政府还曾预言，平均每年只会有1.3万名来自欧盟新成员国的移民进入英国。在政府的这次误判后，公众对其公布的有关退欧经济影响的数据抱以怀疑也就并不奇怪了。

Once the scale of the immigration into Britain became clear, the UK government tried to secure changes in the EU’s rules on the free movement of people. In October, in the early stages of his attempted re-negotiation with the EU, Mr Cameron promised to “sort” the issue and insisted, “I will not take no for an answer.”

看清进入英国的移民规模后，英国政府曾试图促使欧盟改变有关人员自由流动的规定。2014年10月，在刚刚开始尝试与欧盟重新谈判时，卡梅伦曾承诺将“厘清”这个问题，并称将“不达目的决不罢休”。

But the Cameron re-negotiation merely highlighted a third Eurosceptic complaint about the EU: that it is an organisation that finds it all-but-impossible to reform itself.

但卡梅伦的重新谈判不过是凸显了疑欧论者对欧盟的第三条抱怨：这个组织几乎不可能对自身进行改革。

The rules on free movement are one of the “four freedoms” that are regarded as basic to EU membership. But even if there had been leaders around the negotiating table who agreed with Mr Cameron that something needs to change, it was always going to be impossible to secure the agreement of each of the other 27 member states, many of which were under strong domestic pressure to fight for continued free movement of people. Instead, Mr Cameron had to settle for a much weaker reform: delays in the payment of welfare benefits to EU migrants.

有四项自由被视为欧盟成员资格的基础，人员的自由流动就是其中之一。即使在谈判桌上有一些领导人认同卡梅伦的观点（即，某些事情需要改革），获取其他27个成员国中每一个国家的认同也始终是不可能的（这些国家中许多都承受着强大的国内压力，要求争取延续人员的自由流动）。于是，卡梅伦只得满足于一项力度弱得多的改革：推迟向欧盟移民支付福利津贴。

Of course, it is also true that there are elements of dishonesty and xenophobia in the way the Leave campaign has used immigration. The Leavers have sometimes deliberately blurred the distinction between legal immigrants from the EU and asylum seekers fleeing the Middle East — a powerful tactic, given the current refugee crisis in Europe. Nigel Farage, one of the most prominent Leave campaigners, has even evoked sexual assaults by migrants in Germany as a reason to quit the EU.

当然，退欧运动利用移民问题的方式也的确存在不诚实和仇外的成分。退欧派人士有时会故意模糊来自欧盟的合法移民与寻求庇护的中东难民之间的区别——考虑到当前的欧洲难民危机，这是一种强大的战术。退欧运动的旗手之一奈杰尔•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)甚至曾援引德国移民性侵案作为退出欧盟的理由。

At the same time, the Leave campaign has appealed to UK voters with roots outside Europe — by suggesting that if Britain leaves the EU it could adopt an immigration policy that allows in more migrants from India and Pakistan. That idea is unlikely to delight the Leavers’ core vote in the white working class.

同时，退欧运动还暗示，如果英国离开欧盟，英国就可以实施让更多印度和巴基斯坦移民进入英国的移民政策，试图通过这一想法，吸引原籍在欧洲以外的那部分英国选民的支持。但退欧阵营在白人工薪阶层中的核心支持者不太可能喜欢这个想法。

As far as I can see, large-scale migration from Europe has benefited Britain. And many important institutions, from the National Health Service to my local coffee shop, would struggle to get by without it. But then again, as an affluent Londoner, it is predictable that I would take a relaxed view of immigration.

在我看来，来自欧洲的大规模移民让英国受益。如果没有移民，从英国国家卫生服务体系(NHS)到我家附近咖啡店的许多重要机构，都将很难维持运转。不过话说回来，像我这样生活殷实的伦敦人，对移民抱着从容的态度也是可以预料的。

However, at a time when real wages are stagnant, house prices are rising and public services are creaking, many British people are susceptible to the argument that high immigration is making such problems worse.

然而，在实际工资停滞不前，房价越来越高，公共服务不堪重负之际，许多英国人容易接受这样的观点：大规模移民正在让这些问题雪上加霜。

Are these concerns about immigration — real and imagined — enough to overwhelm the economic and strategic case for staying inside the EU? Not as far as I am concerned. But I will not be remotely surprised if Britain decides differently on June 23.

这些有关移民的顾虑（无论是切实存在的还是子虚乌有的），是否足以压倒留在欧盟内的经济和战略上的理由？在我看来不会。但如果英国在6月23日做出了另外的选择，我也一点儿都不会感到惊讶。