【经济学人】白芝浩专栏——保守党在脱欧问题上的危险分歧 [英国媒体]

Bagehot

The dangerous Tory divide over Brexit

保守党在脱欧问题上的危险分歧

The cabinet—a “nest of singing birds”, the foreign secretary insists—is more like a den of vipers

外交大臣坚持认为内阁是在“百鸟争鸣”，但事实上，更像是各怀鬼胎的一窝毒蛇



Sep 23rd 2017

2017年9月23日

ON SEPTEMBER 19th Toys “R” Us, one of the biggest players in America’s toy market, filed for bankruptcy. At about the same time Tories “R” Us, one of the biggest players in Britain’s political market, was doing everything possible to prove that it is heading in the same direction. Voters dislike nothing more than a party at war with itself. The Tories went to war over the most important problem facing the country—one that is largely of their own making.

2017年9月19日，美国玩具市场的最大零售商之一，TOY"R"US（玩具反斗城）宣布破产。而就在同一天，英国政坛最大党派之一Tories "R" US（英国保守党），也正在尽自己的一切努力企图证明，自己也正迈向党毁人亡的道路。选民们最讨厌的事情就是党派的内斗，而保守党却在英国所面临的最严峻问题上内斗不休—而造成这个问题的原因要多半归咎他们自己

译者注：保守党的名称Tory和反斗城的公司名Toy拼写非常接近，作者借此来嘲讽保守党的境况宛如一家破产公司

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, ignited the conflict with a lengthy article on Brexit in the Daily Telegraph, a week before Theresa May was due to give a big speech on the same subject in Florence. Amber Rudd, the home secretary, accused him of “back-seat driving”. Sir David Norgrove, Britain’s chief statistician, criticised his “clear misuse of official statistics” in reviving the claim that Brexit would give Britain a windfall of ￡350m ($475m) a week to spend on the National Health Service. In Mr Johnson’s defence Jacob Rees-Mogg, a backbench Tory, suggested that he should be given a knighthood. As The Economist went to press Mr Johnson was preparing to demonstrate his loyalty to Mrs May by sitting in the front row for her speech, having proclaimed, poetically, that the cabinet was a “nest of singing birds”, as if voters cannot discriminate between trilling nightingales and hissing vipers.

就在特蕾莎·梅将要于佛罗伦萨发表脱欧事宜的重要讲话的一周前，外交大臣鲍里斯·约翰逊却就同一话题于《每日电讯报》上发表长文，点燃了内斗的导火索。内政大臣安博·鲁德指责他的言论是“瞎指挥”，英国国家统计局首席统计师大卫·诺格罗夫爵士批评他的言论是对“官方统计数据的误读”，因为鲍里斯·约翰逊再次提到，脱欧会给英国带来每周3.5亿英镑（约合4.75亿美元）的额外收入，可用于投入国民医疗体系；而为约翰逊辩护的后排议员雅各布·里斯·莫格却建议，应当授予约翰逊骑士头衔。然而就在本刊即将发布之时，约翰逊却已在特蕾莎·梅的演讲现场前排就坐，打算用这种方式向她表忠心，他轻描淡写的宣称，内阁的纷争只是“百鸟争鸣”罢了，好像选民们分不清楚婉转啼鸣的夜莺和嘶嘶作响的毒蛇一样

译者注：本文的背景是鲍里斯·约翰逊在梅姨发表佛罗伦萨演说之前，在每日电讯报上刊文发表了自己对于脱欧的意见，文中约翰逊再次坚持了自己硬脱欧的立场，并抛出了一些被认为是谬误的争议言论，英国舆论普遍视其为向首相权威的公开挑战

What does this soap opera tell us, other than that Britain is ruled by an incestuous clique of frenemies who delight in turning even the most serious issues into melodramas? The most obvious thing is that Britain’s prime minister is as weak as it is possible to be while still residing in Downing Street. Mr Johnson challenged her authority on the most fraught issue in British politics at a peculiarly sensitive time but still kept his job. Sir Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ sharp-tongued leader, compared Mrs May to a headmistress “barricaded in her own office” for fear of unruly pupils. This does not bode well for negotiations which, if they are to succeed, will require Mrs May to persuade her party to sign off on all sorts of concessions and trade-offs.

好一出肥皂剧啊，英国就是被这样一帮相爱相杀、敌友不分的小团体所领导着，居然能把这样严肃的一件事情变成了一出情景喜剧。很明显，首相的权力已是政令不出唐宁街，弱的不能再弱了，鲍里斯·约翰逊在这样一个敏感的时间点，就脱欧这件事情挑战首相的权威，居然还没有被开除。自民党牙尖嘴利的领袖文斯·凯布尔爵士，把梅姨比作“害怕和熊孩子接触而隔着栅栏把自己锁在在办公室里的女校长”。如果英国想要成功地进行脱欧谈判，需要梅姨能说服她的同僚，能够支持她在某些协商和交易中作出的所有让步，但在这时出现这档子事，不是个好兆头。

Still, in exposing Mrs May’s weakness, Mr Johnson has revealed his own. Not so long ago he was the Conservatives’ leader-in-waiting. His success in getting himself elected mayor of London—a left-leaning and multicultural city—proved that he possessed “the Heineken factor”, refreshing parts that other Tories could not reach. Part Bertie Wooster and part Jack the Lad, he went down well at both Tory fetes and in city boozers. Today he is reviled by liberals and distrusted by many party loyalists. As mayor, he was frequently hailed as a hero when cycling through the city. Now he is subject to abuse. A recent poll of Tory activists about who should be the next leader gave him less than 8% of the vote, well behind his fellow Wooster imitator, Mr Rees-Mogg. The result is an impasse. The leader of the government is too weak to impose her authority; the leader of the hard-Brexit faction of her party is too weak to depose her; and Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left leader of the Labour Party, gets ever stronger.

鲍里斯·约翰逊曝光了梅姨的弱势，但也显露了自己的弱点，在不久之前他还是保守党党魁的热门人选，当年他在伦敦这样一个左翼倾向和多元文化城市的市长的竞选中胜出，展露了他身上所具备的“喜力效应”，给选民带来的清爽感受，其他保守党人无人能及，他同时兼备博迪·伍斯特的认真拘谨，和乡村歌手的放荡不羁，上至皇亲国戚，下到三教九流，他都能游刃有余。然而在今天，他却被自由主义者所唾骂，也不再被保守党的死忠所信任。当年还是市长时，他骑着骑行者在城市中穿行，人们向他致以英雄般的欢呼，而现在，迎接他的只有嘘声。在一次最近的由保守党积极分子发起的投票中，只有不到8%认为他是下一任党魁的合适人选，远远落后于只会模仿他认真拘谨一面的雅各布·里斯·莫格，这样的结果不禁令人无语。政府的领导人梅姨无力树立她的权威，而保守党中硬脱欧派的领导人鲍里斯·约翰逊又无力将她罢黜，就这样...坐视工党的极左领袖杰里米·科尔宾日益壮大。

译者注：博迪·伍斯特是英国幽默小说家伍德豪斯的作品《吉夫斯》中的人物，故事大部分由伍斯特视角所叙述，类似《福尔摩斯》中华生医生的角色

Even more worryingly, the Johnson affair reveals how poorly Britain’s preparations for Brexit are going. Mr Johnson’s critics such as Kenneth Clarke, a liberal Tory grandee, argue that the foreign secretary should have obeyed the rules of collective cabinet responsibility: ministers ought to air their views within the cabinet and then defend the collective line. But it turns out that Mrs May has never engaged in a big cabinet debate to determine the line. Instead she has limited discussion to various subcommittees, from which Mr Johnson was pointedly excluded. He was driven to write his article because he thought that the government was slouching towards a “soft Brexit” on the basis of subterfuge rather than open argument.

更糟糕的是,本次事件揭示了英国在脱欧准备工作上的窘境还在继续。保守党大佬，自由主义人士肯尼斯·克拉克对此批评道，鲍里斯·约翰逊应当遵守内阁的集体责任制原则：哪怕有不同意见，内阁官员应进行内部讨论，并一致对外。但问题是，首相从来就对内阁内部讨论这种方式不感冒，恰恰相反，她对下属各委员会的内部探讨进行了种种限制，鲍里斯·约翰逊就被这样被边缘化了。他发表这样的文章也是无奈，因为他感觉政府正在以一种遮遮掩掩的方式慢慢向“软脱欧”方向转变，而不是公开征求众人意见

译者注：肯尼斯·克拉克是保守党老党员，曾在卡梅伦政府中担任要职，目前是下议院担任议员年限最长的议员，又称“下议院之父”，曾经访华并与我国领导人会见

The foreign secretary has highlighted the fissure at the heart of Tory and British politics. Brexit involves a trade-off between what technocrats call “control” (meaning sovereignty) and “access” (meaning freedom to trade with the EU). Soft Brexiteers such as Philip Hammond, the chancellor, and Ms Rudd favour access over control and a long transition rather than a cliff-edge Brexit. They want Britain to “shadow” the single market by obeying most of its rules, including those against striking independent trade deals, for as long as possible. They have the support of most business leaders, who fear disruption more than anything else.

鲍里斯·约翰逊的“奋起反抗”又一次显露了保守党和英国政坛内部核心之间的隔阂，用政坛黑话来讲，脱欧意味着一场在所谓”控制权“（意味着主导权）和”准入权“（与欧盟自由贸易）之间的拉锯战。支持软脱欧的代表人有财相菲利普·哈蒙德和内政大臣安博·鲁德，他们认为”准入权“比”控制权“重要，更希望能在脱欧后一段较长时间的过渡期，而不是跳崖式的硬脱欧。这一派希望英国能通过遵从大部分单一市场准则，成为单一市场的“影子成员”，反对签署独立自主的贸易协定并希望其能被无限期搁置，他们获得了大部分企业家的支持，这些企业家最害怕脱欧带来的混乱。

Hard Brexiteers such as Mr Johnson think this would make a mockery of Britain’s decision to leave the EU in the first place. They want a relatively short transition—Mr Johnson has suggested six to 12 months. They point to the fact that Canada has a comprehensive trade deal with the EU without being a member of the single market and insist that “no deal would be better than a bad deal” on the ground that the worst that can happen is that Britain will revert to World Trade Organisation rules. The central argument in Mr Johnson’s magnum opus was that Brexit is an opportunity to be seized, but that most of those in charge of implementing it see it as a bomb to be defused.

而如鲍里斯·约翰逊为代表的硬脱欧派则认为，这样做会英国起初所做的离开欧盟的决定成为笑柄，硬脱欧派要的是一个相对较短的过渡期，约翰逊建议为6-12个月，并且他们指出，加拿大并非单一市场成员，却依旧能和欧盟达成全面贸易协定，所以硬脱欧派坚持认为”达成一个糟糕的协定，还不如没有协定“，理由是英国最差也就是恢复到世贸组织法则下罢了。硬脱欧派的理论核心就是鲍里斯·约翰逊所谓的”脱欧是一次值得抓住的机会“，但事实上绝大部分脱欧进程的执行者都认为，脱欧是一枚应当被拆除的炸弹。

The great betrayal

彻底的背叛

Mr Johnson’s talk of optimism betrayed also suggests the beginning of something darker: the stab-in-the-back theory of Brexit. Brexiteers are already hard at work explaining why their glorious idea has failed to bear fruit. Brexit was implemented by its enemies rather than its friends. Mrs May was too naive to take on EU officials whose only concern was to see Britain humiliated. Mr Johnson’s intervention this week has positioned him to revive his leadership ambitions as the tribune of this stabbed-in-the-back faction. The Tories’ agonies over Brexit not only make it more likely that the next prime minister will be a hard-leftist who blames Britain’s problems on the machinations of international capital. They also make it more likely that the prime minister after that will be a rightist who blames the country’s problems on the machinations of closet Remoaners and Eurocrats.

鲍里斯·约翰逊的争议言论不仅意味着背叛，也预示着更为险恶的争斗的开始：抓住脱欧这一点，在背后暗箭伤人。脱欧派已经疲于奔命地解释，为何其渲染的宏伟前景未能如预期所示，而脱欧的进程也被脱欧派的政敌所掌握，而并非其盟友。与那些只想狠狠羞辱英国的欧盟官员相比，特蕾莎·梅显然不够格。本周鲍里斯·约翰逊所发表的言论，可以视为他以一种暗箭伤人的内讧方式，重新挑明了其对党魁位置的觊觎之心。保守党在脱欧问题上的挣扎表现，不仅可能导致一位将英国目前问题归咎于跨国资本的阴谋的极左派首相的上台，还可能导致首相之位旁落于一位将英国目前问题归咎于只会在暗处抱怨使坏的留欧派和欧盟官僚的右派分子。