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.
把一切问题都归咎于托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)是件时髦之事。在工党(Labour party)的一些人士看来，这位英国前首相领导该党走了一段新自由主义的弯路，而且在1997至2010年间丢掉了500万张选票。在兴奋地等待齐尔考特(Chilcot)调查报告出炉的其他工党人士眼里，布莱尔是一名应在海牙(The Hague)接受审判的战争犯。虽然这些非难言过其实，但在一件事上布莱尔负有责任。如果6月23日英国在公投中赞成退出欧盟(EU)，可以说，布莱尔应承担相当大的责任。
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.
这一切可以追溯至2004年，当时，欧盟进行了一次大规模扩张，正式纳入包括波兰、匈牙利、捷克在内的多个东欧国家。与德国人不同，布莱尔非常不明智地反对对这些新欧盟公民的自由迁徙实施过渡性控制措施。布莱尔政府当时预计，欧盟此轮扩大将导致每年有1.3万移民进入英国。但这一数字最终达到每年接近17万人。
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.
正如英国《金融时报》最近一篇社论所言，布莱尔“严重低估了可能来到英国的东欧人数量”，他在欧盟东扩问题上处理失当造成了移民已经失控的普遍观念。
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.
过去12年间，政治家们一直试图解决这一问题——首相戴维•卡梅伦(David Cameron)仓促承诺将每年净移民人数减至10万以下只是其中最新一例。退欧阵营人士发现，利用这些未兑现的承诺作为打击对手的武器非常有效。
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.
与此同时，布莱尔并未对自己的行为表现出任何自责。去年接受采访时，他正面回答了关于过渡性控制措施的问题：“我们所做的不过是将无论如何都会发生的事情提前了而已。2004年，英国经济一片繁荣，我们需要来自国外的熟练工人。如果将所有这些东欧移民再次赶出英国，我们国家会变得更强大、更美好吗？答案是不可能。”但布莱尔并未认识到，如果英国能等到其他国家向新的东部成员国开放边界时再作决定，英国就不会成为移民的桥头堡，英国对移民的相对吸引力也会小一些。
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日真像一些退欧阵营人士形容的那样成为英国“独立日”，该责备的人可以填满一长串名单。卡梅伦将在靠近榜首的位置，因为是他首先提出进行公投，同时对可能失败的一方表示支持。反对党领袖杰里米•科尔宾(Jeremy Corbyn)也将因在此次公投运动期间漫不经心的态度而遭遇麻烦。但在对现任政治领导人的功过进行评价的同时，我们也应该记住在往届领导人中有一位从一开始就无意间助长了反移民情绪。