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The writer is a senior fellow of the think-tank UK in a Changing Europe and professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London
本文作者是智库UK in a Changing Europe高级研究员、伦敦国王学院(King’s College London)经济学和公共政策教授
Depending on which of the main parties’ manifestos you read, immigration to the UK is either too high or much too high and the next government will cut it. Unlike many other manifesto promises, this one will almost certainly be kept. Visa applications for work and study are down 30 per cent this year already, while emigration is rising. Applications for work visas in the health and care sector have fallen by an astonishing 75 per cent.
取决于您阅读的是哪个主要政党的宣言，英国的移民要么太多，要么多到爆炸，下届政府将削减移民。与许多其他宣言不同的是，这一承诺几乎肯定会兑现。今年的工作和学习签证申请量已经下降了30%，而移民数量却在上升。医疗保健行业的工作签证申请量更是下降了75%。
Good news for a Labour government? Only in a very narrow sense. The impact of the pandemic and its aftermath on the UK’s labour force, in particular the rise in the number of people out of work because of sickness and disability, has been well publicised. Less obvious has been the extent to which this has been offset by migration, with recent arrivals both much younger and more likely to work than the resident population. There are well over a million more people born outside the EU working in the UK than before the pandemic.
工党政府的好消息？这只是狭义上的好消息。大流行病及其后果对英国劳动力的影响，尤其是因疾病和残疾而失业的人数增加，已广为人知。但没那么明显的是，移民在多大程度上抵消了这一影响，新移民比常住人口更年轻，也更有可能工作。与大流行病发生之前相比，在英国工作的欧盟以外出生的人增加了100多万。
A sharp fall in migration will therefore be a drag on both growth and the public finances. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that a “low migration” scenario would push up the deficit by £13bn at the end of the next parliament, even after taking account of the reduced need for spending on public services. That’s twice as much as Labour’s modest tax increases would raise. And it does not take into account the implications for the NHS and care sector workforce.
因此，移民人数的急剧下降将拖累经济增长和公共财政。据预算责任办公室估计，即使考虑到公共服务支出需求的减少，在“低移民”的情况下，下届议会结束时的赤字也将增加130亿英镑。这相当于工党适度增税所能增加的赤字的两倍。这还没有考虑到对英国国家医疗服务体系和护理部门劳动力的影响。
But leaving aside narrow fiscal arithmetic, the bigger risk for Labour is a political and economic doom loop. Tighter migration policy makes it harder to finance and staff public services. There is convincing evidence that when centrist governments impose austerity in response to such constraints, it in turn drives support for populist and far-right parties, which blame the impacts of austerity on both immigrants and the “elites” in power.
但抛开狭隘的财政计算不谈，工党面临的更大风险是政治和经济上的厄运循环。收紧移民政策使得公共服务的资金和人员配备更加困难。有令人信服的证据表明，当中间派政府为应对这种限制而实施紧缩政策时，反过来又会推动民粹主义和极右翼政党获得支持，这些政党将紧缩政策的影响归咎于移民和当权的“精英”。
Meanwhile, restrictions on legal migration can also lead to an increase in the demand for migrants without authorisation to work. Visible increases in “uncontrolled” migration further undermine the government’s credibility on migration issues.
同时，对合法移民的限制也会导致对无工作许可移民的需求增加。明显增加的“失控”移民进一步削弱了政府在移民问题上的公信力。
We’ve seen versions of this across continental Europe for a decade, where neither marginalising the populist right nor co-opting them or their policies have so far been successful for mainstream political parties. The vacillation and appeasement demonstrated by much of the current Conservative party leadership towards Nigel Farage and Reform UK doesn’t give much confidence that we will do better.
十年来，我们在整个欧洲大陆都看到了这样的情况，无论是排挤民粹主义右翼，还是收编他们或他们的政策，主流政党迄今为止都没有取得成功。保守党现任领导层对奈杰尔•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)和“改革英国”(Reform UK)所表现出的动摇和绥靖并不能让人相信我们会做得更好。
So the challenge for mainstream politicians, and indeed economists, is to break the doom loop. That means not ignoring the immigration issue nor offering watered-down versions of populist “solutions”. There is a window of opportunity here. In the past decade, the UK public’s attitudes to migration and especially its economic impacts has become more positive. The idea that the vast majority of the British public is hostile to immigration and that there is nothing that can be done to change that is false.
因此，主流政治家乃至经济学家面临的挑战是打破厄运循环。这意味着既不能忽视移民问题，也不能提供淡化民粹主义的“解决方案”。这里有一个机会之窗。在过去十年中，英国公众对移民的态度，尤其是对其经济影响的态度变得更加积极。那种认为绝大多数英国公众敌视移民，而且没有任何办法可以改变这种状况的想法是错误的。
Meanwhile, Labour has been commendably clear that growth, if not the answer to all the UK’s economic problems, is a necessary precondition for reversing them and that there are no easy answers or short-cuts. One essential part of long-term growth strategy — alongside education and skills policy, planning and infrastructure and much more — is a managed but also open and flexible migration policy.
与此同时，工党一直明确表示，增长即使不是解决英国所有经济问题的答案，也是扭转这些问题的必要前提，没有简单的答案或捷径，这一点值得称赞。除了教育和技能政策、规划和基础设施等，长期增长战略的一个重要组成部分是有管理但也开放和灵活的移民政策。
What does that mean in practice? Uncertainty resulting from frequent policy change over the past few years has undermined business confidence and investment in the UK. Labour needs to explain — and soon — that immigration is not the problem, but one part of the solution.
这在实践中意味着什么？过去几年中频繁的政策变化所带来的不确定性削弱了英国的商业信心和投资。工党需要解释，而且要尽快解释，移民不是问题所在，而是解决方案的一部分。