在国内缺乏政治共识时，与欧盟打交道总是更加困难。从布鲁塞尔看，何必费心与安迪·伯纳姆的英国达成更紧密关系呢？毕竟，反对党表示将撕毁该协议。
IT IS ALWAYS harder to deal with the European Union when political consensus is lacking at home. Looked at from Brussels, why bother with the effort to agree on a closer relationship with Andy Burnham’s Britain? After all, opposition parties say they will tear it up.
保守党和英国改革党近来都不多谈脱欧，因为脱欧不受欢迎。但两党仍承诺推翻伯纳姆先生计划与欧盟进行的“重启”。这将恼怒那些希望通过与欧盟更紧密接轨来取消贸易壁垒（尤其是食品和农业领域）的企业。如果“重启”能提升出口并降低食品成本，许多公司都希望保留它。影子内阁一位消息人士私下承认，保守党因此可能寻求一种折中方案，即保留协议，但赋予议会对未来欧盟法律的理论上的紧急制动权。
Neither the Conservatives nor Reform UK talk much about Brexit these days, because of its unpopularity. But both still promise to reverse Mr Burnham’s planned “reset” with the EU. That would irk businesses wishing to scrap trade barriers, especially in food and agriculture, through closer alignment with the bloc. If the reset boosts exports and lowers food costs, many firms will want to keep it. A shadow-cabinet source admits privately that the Tories might therefore seek a fudge that retains the deal but gives Parliament a theoretical emergency brake on future EU laws.
让欧盟更担忧的是，反对党承诺退出《欧洲人权公约》（ECHR）。保守党领袖基米·巴德诺赫现在要求她所有的议会候选人都支持这一主张。欧盟外交官表示，她可能没有想清楚后果。不仅仅是英国——作为《欧洲人权公约》的缔造者——加入白俄罗斯和俄罗斯，成为欧洲唯二不在公约内的国家，这令人尴尬。更严重的是，《欧洲人权公约》成员身份既被脱欧后的贸易与合作协议（TCA）所假定，也被软化大不列颠与北爱尔兰之间海关边界的温莎框架所假定。它还包含在《贝尔法斯特协议》中。
What worries the EU more is the opposition’s pledge to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, now requires all her parliamentary candidates to support this. EU diplomats suggest she may not have thought through the consequences. It is not just the embarrassment of Britain, a creator of the ECHR, joining Belarus and Russia as the only European countries outside it. More seriously, ECHR membership is assumed in both the post-Brexit trade and co-operation agreement (TCA) and the Windsor framework that softens the customs border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is also in the Good Friday Agreement.
部分保守党人士认为，其他欧盟国家不喜欢《欧洲人权公约》，尤其是执行该公约的法院。但不赞同与退出是两回事。与改革党有关联的智库“更好英国中心”即将发布的一份文件，概述了废除所有脱欧后欧盟条约的各种选项，并指出哪些选项可能引发报复。其中一项就是退出《欧洲人权公约》。这些条约就像叠叠乐塔：抽出一块关键积木，整座建筑就可能倒塌。
Some Tories argue that other EU countries dislike the ECHR, and especially the court that enforces it. But disapproval and withdrawal are different matters. A forthcoming paper by the Centre for a Better Britain, a think-tank linked to Reform, outlines various options for scrapping all post-Brexit EU treaties, identifying which can be expected to trigger retaliation. One such is pulling out of the ECHR. These treaties are built like a Jenga tower: pull out one key brick and the whole edifice can fall.
英国退出《欧洲人权公约》最可能的回应，就是废除温莎框架和整个《贸易与合作协定》，实际上实施一种连鲍里斯·约翰逊在2020年都避免的极端版本的脱欧。
The most likely response to British ECHR withdrawal would be scrapping the Windsor framework and the TCA as a whole—in effect implementing a version of Brexit so hard that even Boris Johnson avoided it in 2020.
因此，在下一次大选中，选民可能面临一种反常的选择。没有任何政党支持现状。工党和自由民主党可能会主张与欧盟建立更紧密的关系。与此同时，保守党和改革党将承诺退出《欧洲人权公约》。智库“欧洲变迁中的英国”的安南德·梅农表示，这只指向两种选择：重新加入，或回归无协议脱欧。迄今占主导地位的模糊妥协可能不再提供。
At the next general election voters may therefore face a perverse choice. No party favours the status quo. Labour and the Liberal Democrats will probably campaign for a closer relationship with the EU. At the same time the Tories and Reform will promise to pull out of the ECHR. Anand Menon of UK in a Changing Europe, a think-tank, says this points to just two alternatives: moving to rejoin or reverting to a no-deal Brexit. The mushy compromise that has so far prevailed may no longer be on offer.