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250年来一直左右着全球事务的伦敦，或将成为西方的迪拜，一个资金充裕但地缘政治影响不大的地方。
Brexit will mark the end of Britain’s role as a great power
One of the great strengths of democracy is that bad policies are often reversed. That’s a consolation when we look at the flurry of pandering programs being enacted as the populist wave works its way through the Western world. When a new government is elected, things can be undone. Except for Brexit, which, if it goes through, might prove to be the most profound legacy of this decade.
在民粹主义浪潮席卷西方世界之际，我们看到一系列迎合选民的政策正在实施，好在民主有它的一大好处，那就是糟糕的政策往往会被撤销。每当新政府当选，一切就都可以推倒重来。然而，英国脱欧这件事却是无法逆转的。当全部程序完成之后，这将可能是整个2010年代对后世影响最深远的事件。
Britain, famous for its prudence, propriety and punctuality, is suddenly looking like a banana republic as it makes reckless decisions, misrepresents reality and now wants to change its own self-imposed deadline. But if it does leave the European Union, it would be bad news for Britain, Europe and the West.
以谨慎、得体和规矩闻名的英国突然变得像个“香蕉共和国”（指反复无常的国家，尤其是拉丁美洲的一些国家——译注），它做出了鲁莽的决定，不仅歪曲事实，现在还想要改变给自己设定的最后期限。但如果它真的离开欧盟，对英国、欧洲和西方国家来说都将是个坏消息。
As Martin Sandbu writes in the Political Quarterly, Brexit has always been “a solution in search of a problem.” To me, the best evidence of this is that Britain’s Euroskeptics generally want to leave the E.U. because they see it as a statist juggernaut. In virtually every other member country, Euroskeptics dislike the E.U. because they see it as a free-market juggernaut. So either all of those other countries have it backward, or Britain’s Conservatives have gone nuts.
正如马丁•桑布在《政治季刊》中所写，脱欧一直是英国的“一个解决问题的备选方案”。在我看来最好的证据是，英国的欧洲怀疑主义者普遍希望离开欧盟，因为他们认为欧盟是一个奉行中央集权主义的庞大势力。在几乎所有其他成员国，欧洲怀疑论主义者都不喜欢欧盟，因为他们认为欧盟对自由市场持有敌意。所以，要么所有其他国家都退缩了，要么英国的保守党已经失去理智。
When I asked my Post colleague Anne Applebaum what historians would look at when trying to understand the road to Brexit, she suggested it all centers on the Conservative Party.
我问了《华盛顿邮报》的同事安妮•阿普尔鲍姆，历史学家是如何看待英国脱欧之路的，她表示，一切注意力都应放在保守党身上。
The Tories could probably claim to be the most significant political party of the 1900s, governing Britain for most of the century, producing Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and other iconic Western statesmen.
保守党可能会宣称自己是20世纪最重要的政党，不仅在本世纪的大部分时间拥有英国的统治权，还造就了温斯顿•丘吉尔、玛格丽特•撒切尔等有代表性的西方政治家。
But after the Cold War, as left-wing parties abandoned socialist ideas and moved to the center, the right faced an identity crisis. It needed to find the kind of clarity and purpose that anti-communism and freedom had provided. In the United States, this mobilized the Republicans to emphasize social and cultural issues such as abortion, gay rights and immigration, which they coupled with an almost religious fury against liberals.
但冷战结束后，随着左翼政党抛弃社会主义思想，转向中间派，右翼也面临着身份认同危机。它需要找到反共产主义和自由议题能够提供的那种明确性和目的性。在美国，共和党人开始强调社会和文化议题，比如堕胎、同性恋权利和移民问题，同时对自由主义者表现出近乎宗教仇恨般的愤怒。
In Britain, Conservatives found themselves in the same mushy middle that Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron inhabited. So, as Applebaum noted, they went radical — on Europe. Of course, there were always Euroskeptics, but they had been a small, eccentric minority within the party. By the midpoint of Cameron’s premiership, they were able to hold the party hostage and force Britain to walk the plank.
在英国，保守党发现自己与首相托尼•布莱尔和戴维•卡梅伦一样，都处于一个立场模糊的中间位置。因此，正如阿普尔鲍姆所指出的，他们在欧洲问题上变得激进。当然，欧洲怀疑论者一直都存在，但他们此前只是只是党内一小撮古怪的少数派而已。在卡梅伦首相任期中期，他们成功地“劫持”了保守党，迫使英国脱离欧盟。
We’re all weary of the drama, but keep in mind: Brexit would be a disaster. As Sandbu points out, Britain’s economy is competitive and productive only in high-value manufacturing and services, both of which depend on a deeply integrated market with Europe. Although Britain can and will adjust, Brexit would probably mean a path of slower growth and less innovation for the country and its people.
我们都厌倦了这场闹剧，但请一定要记住：英国脱欧将是一场灾难。正如桑布指出的那样，英国经济只有在高价值的制造业和服务业中才具有竞争力和生产力，而这两者都依赖于与欧洲的深度融合。尽管英国能够调整，也将会调整，但脱欧可能意味着英国及其人民将走上一条增长放缓、创新减少的道路。
The foreign policy consequences of Brexit are being discussed least but might prove to be the most consequential. If Brexit does occur, within a few years, Scotland and Northern Ireland would probably loosen their ties to Britain to maintain their association with Europe. The United Kingdom would then be reduced to just England and tiny Wales, not really fitting into any of the three economic blocs of the 21st century — North America, Europe and China. London, a city that has shaped global affairs for 250 years, would become the West’s Dubai, a place where lots of money sloshes around but of no great geopolitical consequence.
英国脱欧对外交政策的影响很少被讨论到，但其后果可能是最严重的。如果英国真的脱欧，在几年内，苏格兰和北爱尔兰就可能会弱化与英国之间的联系，从而维系与欧洲的联盟关系。到那时，联合王国就只剩下英格兰和小小的威尔士，不再真正属于21世纪的三大经济集团——北美、欧洲和中国——中的任何一个了。250年来一直左右着全球事务的伦敦，或将成为西方的迪拜，一个资金充裕但地缘政治影响不大的地方。
Europe would also lose a lot with Brexit. Britain has a large and vibrant economy. But more important, Britain has been a crucial voice in the community for free markets, openness, efficiency and an outward-looking foreign policy. It has been one of the few European countries that has maintained and deployed a powerful army, often for broader global purposes.
脱欧也会让欧洲损失惨重。英国是个庞大而且充满活力的经济体，但更重要的是，在自由市场、贸易开放、经济效率和对外政策方面，英国一直是欧盟中一个有决定性的声音。它是为数不多的几个保有并且部署强大军队的欧洲国家之一，这支军队往往会在更广阔的全球事务中发挥作用。
As non-Western countries such as China rise, the central question of international relations is: Can the international system built by the West — which has produced peace and prosperity for 75 years — last? Or will the rise of China and India and the revival of Russia erode it and return us to what Robert Kagan calls “the jungle” of international life — marked by nationalism, protectionism and war?
随着中国等非西方国家崛起，国际关系的核心问题是：75年来创造了和平与繁荣的由西方建立的国际体系能否持续？还是会因中国和印度的崛起，以及俄罗斯的复兴而受到侵蚀，让我们回到国际社会的“丛林”（罗伯特•卡根所描述的以民族主义、保护主义和战争为特征的国际关系体系）？
The world order as we know it was built over two centuries, during the reigns of two liberal, Anglo superpowers — Britain and then the United States. Brexit would mark the end of Britain’s role as a great power, and I wonder whether it would also mark the day that the West, as a political and strategic entity, begins to crumble.
我们所了解的世界秩序经过两个多世纪才建立起来，当时英国和美国这两个自由主义的盎格鲁超级大国处于统治地位。英国脱欧将标志着英国大国地位的终结，是否也标志着作为一个政治和战略实体的西方世界从此崩溃，我们无从知晓。
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