2019年议会外的肖像描绘了保守党政客特蕾莎·梅、鲍里斯·约翰逊、迈克尔·戈夫和大卫·戴维斯。
An effigy outside parliament in 2019 depicting Tory politicians Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and David Davis.
永远不会重新打开英国脱欧的大门，但现在首相已经这样做了，保守党应该让他走过去，这根本不可能成功，但不知何故，他可能逃脱了惩罚。上周，演员理查德·E·格兰特（Richard E Grant）成为《叛徒》（The Traitors）的第一位参赛者--该剧唯一牢不可破的规则就是永远不要让任何人知道你是凶手--在被选中的几分钟内就兴高采烈地宣布，是的，哈哈，就是他！然而，即使在那时，他的许多参赛者似乎太喜欢他了。
Badenoch would never have reopened the door on Brexit, but now that the PM has, it suits the Conservatives to let him walk through it here’s no way on earth it should have worked, but somehow he may have got away with it. Last week, the actor Richard E Grant became the first contestant on The Traitors – a show whose only unbreakable rule is never to let anyone know you’re the murderer – to gleefully announce within minutes of being selected that yes, haha, it’s him! Yet even then many of his fellow contestants seemed to like him too much to recoil.
粗略地说，这就是安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）现在的英国退欧战略。多年来，工党政界人士--尤其是伯纳姆本人，在马克菲尔德补选中，如果没有这次补选，他现在就不会成为首相--试图隐藏他们对英国退欧的真实感受，伯纳姆决定说出真相，并希望人们接受它。离开没有奏效，他上周在利物浦直言不讳地说，英国应该考虑其他选择。
And that, roughly speaking, is now Andy Burnham’s Brexit strategy. After years of Labour politicians – not least Burnham himself, in the Makerfield byelection without which he would not now be prime minister – trying to hide their real feelings about Brexit, Burnham has decided just to tell the truth and hope people roll with it. Leaving hasn’t worked, he said bluntly last week in Liverpool and Britain should consider the alternatives.
如果你是一名脱欧者，怀疑他打算解除英国脱欧--嗯，是的，他确实是。这一大胆的策略似乎让他自己的内阁大部分人感到惊讶，这是他喜欢为那些没有足够仔细研究他在曼彻斯特的业务的人工作的早期教训。但对曾经的地震的最初反应出奇地沉默，这表明它也让一些反对者措手不及。
If you’re a leaver who suspects him of being out to unwind Brexit – well, yes, he is. This bold strategy seemingly surprised much of his own cabinet an early lesson in how he likes to work for those who hadn’t studied his Manchester operation closely enough. But the oddly muted initial response to what would once have been a seismic shock suggests it’s wrongfooting some opponents, too.
奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）是唯一一个无忧无虑地做出反应的人。改革的下一份宣言现在基本上是为他写的：拯救英国脱欧，停止船只，不要投票给恢复党，因为它赢不了。
Nigel Farage has been the only one to react with unfettered glee Reform’s next manifesto is basically now written for him: save Brexit, stop the boats and don’t vote for Restore because it can’t win.
自由民主党人和绿党面临的局势则更为复杂：他们曾将自己塑造成左翼中唯一真正支持欧洲一体化的力量，如今却不得不费力地为自己推动工党做出正确选择而邀功。然而，目前最有趣的困境，恰恰是正在伯明翰召开党代会的那个政党所面临的。
Things are more complicated for the Lib Dems and Greens, who, having pitched themselves as the only real pro-Europeans on the left, are now stuck with trying to take credit for pushing Labour into doing the right thing. But it’s the party currently holding its conference in Birmingham that faces the most interesting dilemma.
如今，凯米·巴德诺奇很少提及“脱欧”——她是在公投之后才当选的，似乎已将保守党那代人所经历的“脱欧”创伤视为历史陈迹。在她声称将成为保守党政府基础的95页个人随笔《正确之道》中，“脱欧”也仅被简短提及。周一，影子财政大臣安德鲁·格里菲斯在发表政纲演讲时，选择指责伯恩哈姆将英国拖回20世纪70年代，而非拖回2015年。
Kemi Badenoch doesn’t mention Brexit much these days – only elected after the referendum, she seems to regard the generational Conservative trauma of that period as history now – and it gets only brief mentions in The Right Way the 95-page personal essay she says would form the bedrock of a Tory government. In his platform speech on Monday, the shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, chose to focus on accusing Burnham of supposedly dragging Britain back to the 1970s, rather than back to 2015.
在这一点上，他们的观点与保守党残余选民的主流看法一致：这些选民更关心税收、营商成本、小型船只，以及工党究竟对酒吧里的拉布拉多犬有何偏见，而不是重新争论“脱欧”协议。然而，保守党仍承诺要逆转工党对“脱欧”的任何拆解行动，无论这会如何影响巴德诺奇同时坚称至关重要的经济增长。
On this they echo much of what’s left of the Tory vote, who are more interested in tax, the costs of doing business, small boats and what exactly Labour has against labradors in pubs than in relitigating the Brexit deal. Yet the Conservatives are still promising to reverse any Labour unravelling of Brexit, regardless of how that affects the economic growth Badenoch simultaneously insists is everything to her.
从逻辑上看，这完全说不通，但或许这并不困扰以往的保守党领袖。然而，对于一位自诩为严谨思想家、并以类似撒切尔夫人20世纪70年代时期那样经过深思熟虑的世界观来对待权力的人来说，这无疑是一个错误。
It makes no intellectual sense, which arguably didn’t bother previous Tory leaders. But it’s a mistake for one pitching herself as a rigorous thinker, approaching power with the same robustly worked-through theory of the world as Thatcher in the 1970s.
如今，增长已成为巴德诺奇为所有决策所依据的理由：从废除环境署——该机构被指责拖累了开发商，尽管一些乡村保守党选民恰恰喜欢这一点——到为收入超过10万英镑的父母提供免费托儿服务（理由是，目前高收入者宁愿减少工作时间，也不愿失去幼儿园名额）。这些政策成为她为一些可能不受欢迎的选择所做的辩护，也是她一切行动的核心与终极目标。然而，由于忽视了脱欧正在对贸易和GDP造成的持续损害，巴德诺奇实际上正在亲手摧毁她所宣称的增长使命。
Growth is now Badenoch’s rationale for everything, from scrapping the Environment Agency– accused of being a drag on developers, although that’s precisely what some rural Tory voters like about it – to giving parents earning over £100,000 free childcare (on the grounds that, currently, high earners will cut their working hours rather than lose that nursery place). It’s her defence for some potentially unpopular choices, her alpha and omega. Yet by ignoring the ongoing damage Brexit is doing to trade and GDP, Badenoch is chopping her self-professed growth mission off at the knees.
在巴德诺奇刻意呼应其论述的1976年文章《正确的方法》中，玛格丽特·撒切尔曾宣称，她的政党“始终着眼于外部，同时关注英国的安全、经济利益和荣誉”，并严厉批评工党对当时欧洲共同体的缺乏热情。如今的时代背景显然不同，但1976年的撒切尔仍是一位务实主义者，主张欧洲“应专注于实际可行且能够实现的目标”；而2026年的巴德诺奇则已沦为意识形态的信徒。
In her 1976 essay The Right Approach which Badenoch’s treatise consciously echoes, Margaret Thatcher declared that her party “has always been outward-looking, while concerned with the security, the economic interests and the honour of Britain”, and lambasted Labour’s lack of enthusiasm for the then European Community. The context now is obviously different, but Thatcher in 1976 was still a pragmatist arguing for Europe “to concentrate on what is practical and what is attainable”, where Badenoch in 2026 is an ideologue.
尽管保守党领袖相对受欢迎，但该政党的形象依然令人反感，主要原因在于选民已厌倦了无休止的脱欧相关闹剧占据威斯敏斯特的议程，而任何实际好处却并未真正显现。如果不对此加以承认，那么向那些投票支持留欧的前保守党选区抛出诸如银行家免费托儿等政策，根本毫无意义。但如果她实在无法做到这一点，那么巴德诺奇的最佳选择，就是让伯纳姆将她自己的政党从自己制造的死胡同中拯救出来。
The Tory brand remains toxic despite its leader’s relative popularity mostly because voters got sick of endless Brexit-related drama consuming Westminster, while none of the practical benefits materialised. There’s no point dangling policies such as free childcare for bankers over the remain-voting former Tory shires without acknowledging all that. But if she can’t bring herself to do so, then Badenoch’s next best bet is to let Burnham rescue her party from a dead end of its own making.
尽管他们绝不会主动打开这扇门，但事实上，让伯纳姆从中走出，同时把任何可能出现的失败都归咎于他，正是保守党所乐见的。如果他能够构想出一个神话般的欧盟协议——既能促进贸易与繁荣，又能让因移民问题而焦虑不安的选民接受——当然，这仍是一个巨大的“如果”——那么未来的政府都将欠他一份人情。如果他做不到，巴德诺奇只需加入谴责的声浪即可。但从长远来看，扼杀此事于萌芽阶段并不符合保守党的利益。
Though they would never have opened this door, in truth it suits the Tories to let Burnham walk through it, while blaming him for whatever goes wrong. If he can construct some mythical EU deal boosting trade and prosperity while remaining acceptable to an electorate convulsed with anxiety about immigration – a big if – then future governments will owe him. If he can’t, Badenoch can just join the chorus of condemnation. But it’s not in Tory long-term interests to strangle this at birth.
，那些对保守党长远利益漠不关心的读者，其实应该关心这样一个事实：在欧洲方面明确认为英国政府更迭不会导致脱欧进程崩溃之前，欧洲不会重新陷入痛苦的脱欧谈判。即便不是举行全民公投，至少也需要各政党默许英国或许能取得更好的结果。巴德诺奇甚至不必明确表示支持重新考虑，她唯一需要做的，是这一次不要直接拒绝。加比·欣斯利夫是《卫报》的专栏作家。
Readers who couldn’t care less about Tory long-term interests, meanwhile, should care that Europe won’t re-enter tortuous Brexit negotiations until it’s clear they could survive a change of government in Britain. If not a referendum, that means at least tacit cross-party acceptance that the country could do better. Badenoch doesn’t even have to say yes to a rethink. All she has to do, for once, is not say no. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist