帝国余晖：英国需要怎样的移民政策Imperial Afterglow: What Kind of Immigration Policy Does Britain Need?

By Timothy Huang

2025年11月17日，英国内政大臣Shabana Mahmood公布了英国二战以来最严格的移民政策改革，当中特别涉及了对难民和庇护申请者的移民规则与福利制度的调整，引起了广泛的社会争论。然而，对于英国移民政策尤其是其难民政策的讨论，往往流于模版化，与我们在大学课堂上听到的讨论别无二致。它们既没有考虑根植于英国两千年传统的价值与自由，也没有关注英国与欧陆国家的巨大差异。甚至内政大臣自己的改革政策也是取自于丹麦——一个除了王室联姻、近千年前的战争、和严控移民尤其是难民的价值取向外，与英国再无制度性联系的国家。这是本次移民政策改革提案在各个阵营都引起反响和反对的重要原因。

无论是否乐意承认，当代英国始终是大英帝国的余晖，而帝国主义体系即使已经解体超过半个世纪，仍然在方方面面影响和塑造着作为帝国核心的联合王国。移民问题就是其中重要的组成部分之一。帝国的生命力在于帝国边缘地区的人民不断被吸纳和同化为帝国组成部分，使帝国核心以较少和相对而言越来越少的资源统治更加广袤的地区。一日帝国，终生帝国，少数人统治多数人的“帝国主义杠杆”，只会随着帝国灭亡而消失，而不会随着帝国体面的退场和解体而消失，奥斯曼帝国和西班牙帝国的历史对比完美说明了这一点。因此，即使英国的传统中有无数的保守主义成分，他们通常被进步主义者们错误解读为反移民和孤立主义，保守主义传统并不排除同样作为英国传统一部分的不断吸纳帝国边缘人口的移民体系。因此，和包括丹麦、德国在内的、依靠民族主义建立起来的欧陆各国都不同，英国没有一个“需要维持正统”的、自己的德意志民族。

而说起“德意志民族”，这个概念本也是人为建构的大杂烩，掺杂着大量的彼时的政治斗争残余。为何勃兰登堡是德意志，而维也纳、布拉格和荷尔斯泰因就不是德意志？柯尼斯堡被苏联人驱逐甚至屠杀的本地人是不是德意志人？即使当代英国的民族建构远比德意志要坚实和根植于本国历史传统，但很多人仍然会问，作为雇佣兵移民不列颠的昂格鲁萨克逊人，与俄乌战场上的雇佣兵有什么本质区别？征服者威廉和他率领的诺曼人又真的是单纯基于黑斯廷斯战役的胜利而统治英格兰的吗？凡此种种，提醒我们，必须从历史和传统视角观察英国的移民政策，而不能模仿和套用欧陆民族国家简单的左右之争。

欲戴王冠，必承其重。大英帝国的辉煌遗产足够如今的联合王国享用数个世纪，而帝国主义扩张所必然带来的少数族裔对帝国中心——也就是如今的联合王国——的天然向往，也是这份遗产不可分割的一部分。与之切割便是与大英帝国的荣耀切割，而这是许多宣称自己反对移民、维护传统的英国人无法接受的。在这一视角下，辛伟诚在2022年入主唐宁街十号没有任何族裔融合方面的意义，因为印度裔群体本就是大英帝国的组成部分，他们以及其他少数族裔在历史上遭遇的不公平对待，本质是君主和贵族对“臣民”的对待，而不曾有过美国黑人那样作为共和国的二等公民的阶段。许多传统主义者不愿意承认的是，对帝国边缘少数族裔的吸纳和同化，正是他们试图从进步主义者手中夺过和恢复的英国光荣传统的一部分。

因此，英国政府必须谨慎对待这份确保我们未来几个世纪的荣耀与富足的帝国遗产。英国当然必须夺回边境控制权，必须确保公共安全，必须毫不犹豫地驱逐任何没有理由停留在英国的非法移民，这些措施，在必要情况下，甚至必须以比法拉奇所呼吁的更严格的方式予以执行。但同时，一味地通过复杂而无法实现的制度障碍为合法移民——无论是否是庇护申请者——制造融入英国的障碍，这将从根本上摧毁我们英国的帝国主义传统，也会让英国几十年前主动放弃帝国主义体系所作出的牺牲毫无意义。英国的传统决定了，它绝不可能依照丹麦这样的民族国家践行移民政策。

具体地讲，降低英国作为非法移民申请虚假政治庇护目的地的吸引力，这一哲学是完全正确的。然而，内政大臣的措施无助于实现这一目标。英国相比于法国更高的工资（无论是合法工作还是非法工作），和更优渥的庇护申请者的福利待遇，是吸引那些已经到达法国这样一个绝对安全的国家的非法移民再次冒着生命危险乘坐小船偷渡到英国的主要因素。然而，如果英国取消庇护申请者的福利待遇，就必须赋予他们完全的工作权，这几乎会让目前在剥削下打黑工的庇护申请者到手收入翻倍，否则等于让庇护申请者全部流落街头，而斯塔莫爵士、巴德诺赫女士和法拉奇先生会基于不同理由坚决反对并阻止这个情形出现。那么，难道我们需要至少降低英国的最低工资到法国的水平吗？作为奥地利学派的拥趸，我个人非常乐见这个超过16.5%的最低工资降幅，我会说16.5%的降幅还不够，165%的降幅甚至彻底取消最低工资标准才可以让我鼓掌，但我非常现实地理解，这永远不可能发生。那么，难道内政大臣的最终解决方案是让庇护申请者涌入劳动市场与本地人争夺岗位吗？我们必须承认，如果英国要履行自己的国际人道主义责任，对庇护申请者和难民的福利支出总有一个最终的来源，它或许是政府拨款，或许是本地人失去的工作收入，或许如内政大臣所计划的那样，部分来自于对领取福利的庇护申请者的没收财产。无论如何，难民福利支出总会随着难民人数的增加而线性增长，将这部分支出隐藏到表外是一种毫无意义的政治操作，也是对英国选民的欺骗。

而内政大臣希望在长达10年或20年的时间里，每2.5年对难民进行一次复核，并将原国籍国已经被视为安全国家的难民遣返。内政大臣或许没有问过内政部的一线个案工作者，审核一个庇护申请平均耗费了多久。根据英国内政部公布的数据，58%的庇护申请案件等待时长超过6个月，27%的案件等待时长超过12个月，而我们必须假设，一次认真的复核，消耗的时间不会低于初次申请的审核所需的时间，而纳税人为何要为因此而需要扩张数倍的内政部工作人员的工资买单？如果复核是因为内政部没有信心确保其所批准的难民在一开始就完全符合要求，纳税人又为何要为这种无能买单呢？而真正的难民和合法移民，又为何要为那些虚假申请者、以及内政部无力甄别他们这一事实，而付出如此巨大的代价呢？而那些永居等待时长即将翻倍的工签持有者，以及被限制上诉权利的家庭路线申请者，又为何要遭受无妄之灾呢？

相比较之下，本届政府似乎对难民群体的融入问题毫不关心，对具体的非法移民遣返方法毫不关心，对守护英国珍贵的传统与价值毫不关心，而他们管控边境和移民的唯一手段，就是让纳税人为政府承担代价，让合法移民和真正的难民为非法移民和虚假庇护申请者承担代价。这恐怕是工党唯一在践行的传统——但这并非英国的光荣传统。

“移民是国家的组成部分”，这句话或许在丹麦只是进步主义者们幼稚的口号，而在联合王国，这就是它的历史传统和事实情况。英国就是世界上与众不同的国家，而工党政府似乎对此缺乏必要的理解，正如它历史上不断无知地抛弃孕育了工党自身的工会组织，而宁愿把自己降格为一个普通的社会民主党一样。工党政府通过牺牲合法移民和真正难民的利益，来为自己管控非法移民的失败而进行掩饰的做法，既违背了英国的传统价值，也违背了包括工党选民在内的全体英国纳税人的利益。

Imperial Afterglow: What Kind of Immigration Policy Does Britain Need?

By Timothy Huang

On 17 November 2025, the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, unveiled the strictest package of immigration reforms since the Second World War. The proposals pay particular attention to changes in the rules and welfare regime for refugees and asylum seekers, and have sparked intense public controversy. Yet debates about British immigration policy – especially refugee policy – have become formulaic, barely distinguishable from the seminar-room conversations we once sat through at university. They take no account of the values and freedoms rooted in two thousand years of British tradition, nor of the profound differences between Britain and the countries of continental Europe. Even the Home Secretary’s own proposals are essentially imported from Denmark – a country which, beyond dynastic marriages, wars of almost a thousand years ago and a shared preference for strict immigration and refugee controls, has no institutional connection with Britain at all. This is a major reason why the reform package has provoked such strong reactions – and opposition – from every camp.

Whether or not we are willing to admit it, contemporary Britain is still the afterglow of the British Empire, and the imperial system, though formally dismantled more than half a century ago, continues to shape and influence the United Kingdom, the old imperial core, in every respect. Immigration is one important part of this story. An empire’s vitality lies in its ability to draw in and assimilate peoples on the periphery, turning them into constituents of the imperial whole, so that the metropolitan core can rule ever larger territories with relatively fewer – and ever fewer – resources. Once an empire, always an empire: the imperial ‘lever’ by which a small minority rule a vast majority disappears only when the empire itself perishes, not when it exits gracefully from the stage. A comparison between the Ottoman and Spanish empires illustrates this perfectly. Thus, even though British tradition contains countless conservative elements – which progressives routinely misread as anti-immigrant and isolationist – conservatism in the British tradition does not exclude an immigration system that constantly absorbs the peoples of the imperial periphery, for that system is itself part of Britain’s tradition. In this respect, Britain is wholly unlike continental nation states such as Denmark or Germany, founded on ethnic nationalism, and does not possess UK’s own ‘German nation’ whose doctrinal purity has to be preserved.

And even the term ‘German nation’ is itself an artificial construct, a hotchpotch of ideas laced with the residues of political struggles of the day. Why is Brandenburg ‘German’, yet Vienna, Prague or Holstein are not? Were the people of Königsberg, expelled or massacred by the Soviet authorities, Germans or not? Even though modern Britain’s nation-building is far more robust and deeply rooted in its own historical traditions than that of Germany, many people still ask: in essence, how different were the Anglo-Saxon mercenaries who migrated to Britain from today’s foreign fighters on the Ukrainian and Russian front lines? Did William the Conqueror and his Normans really gain the right to rule England purely on the basis of victory at Hastings? Questions such as these remind us that we must look at British immigration policy through the lens of history and tradition, and not simply imitate and transpose the crude left–right disputes of continental nation-states.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. The glorious legacy of the British Empire is sufficient to sustain the United Kingdom for centuries to come. The natural attraction exercised by the imperial centre – today’s United Kingdom – on ethnic minorities from the former periphery is an inseparable part of that legacy. To sever this link is to cut ourselves off from the glory of the Empire. That is something many Britons who claim to oppose immigration in order to defend tradition would never accept. From this perspective, Rishi Sunak’s entry into No. 10 in 2022 had no particular significance for ‘ethnic integration’, because Britons of Indian origin are themselves part of the British imperial story. The unfair treatment they and other minorities suffered in the past was, in essence, the treatment of ‘subjects’ by monarch and aristocracy; they were never placed, as African Americans once were, in a formal second-class legal category. What many traditionalists are unwilling to acknowledge is that the absorption and assimilation of minorities from the imperial periphery is itself part of the proud heritage of Britain that they are trying to wrest back and restore from the progressives.

The British Government must, therefore, handle with great care this imperial inheritance, which underwrites our honour and prosperity for centuries to come. Britain must, of course, take back control of its borders, ensure public safety, and expel, without hesitation, any illegal migrant who has no grounds to remain in the country. Where necessary, such measures must even be enforced more strictly than Nigel Farage suggests. At the same time, however, if we erect ever more complex and unworkable institutional barriers that make it harder for lawful migrants – legal asylum seekers included – to integrate into British society, we will destroy, at root, the imperial tradition that defines us and render meaningless the sacrifices Britain made, decades ago, when she chose to dismantle the imperial system. Britain’s own traditions mean that it simply cannot run its immigration policy along the lines of an ethnic nation state like Denmark.

More specifically, the philosophy of reducing Britain’s attractiveness as a destination for illegal migrants lodging bogus asylum claims is entirely sound. The Home Secretary’s measures, however, do nothing to advance that goal. The main reasons why migrants who have already reached absolutely safe countries such as France still risk their lives by crossing the Channel in small boats are Britain’s higher wages – in both the formal and informal labour markets – and the more generous benefits on offer to asylum seekers. If Britain abolishes welfare entitlements for asylum seekers, then they must be granted full rights to work; that alone would almost double the take-home pay of those currently working illegally under exploitative conditions. If they are not allowed to work and their benefits are cut, then we are effectively turning asylum seekers onto the streets – a state of affairs that Sir Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage would each, for their own reasons, firmly oppose and seek to prevent.

Do we, then, need to cut the British minimum wage to French levels? As a supporter of the Austrian School, I personally would welcome a reduction of more than 16.5 per cent. I would say that even 16.5 per cent is nowhere near enough; only a 165 per cent cut – or the complete abolition of the minimum wage – would make me cheer. But I am realistic enough to know that this will never happen. Is the Home Secretary’s ultimate solution, then, to release asylum seekers en masse into the labour market to compete with local workers for jobs? We have to acknowledge that if Britain is to honour its international humanitarian obligations, the money spent on refugees and asylum seekers must ultimately come from somewhere. It may be government spending; it may be the lost earnings of local workers; it may, as the Home Secretary proposes, be funded in part by confiscating the assets of benefit-claiming asylum seekers. One way or another, the cost of refugee welfare will rise linearly as the number of refugees increases. Hiding that cost off the books is a meaningless political trick and an act of deception against the British electorate.

The Home Secretary also proposes to reassess refugees every two and a half years over a period of ten or twenty years, and to repatriate those whose countries of origin are now deemed ‘safe’. One wonders whether she has asked front-line caseworkers in the Home Office how long an initial asylum assessment currently takes. According to the Home Office’s own data, 58 per cent of asylum cases wait more than six months for a decision, and 27 per cent wait more than twelve months. We must assume that a serious review will take no less time than an initial assessment. Why, then, should taxpayers foot the bill for a Home Office that would need to expand its staff several-fold in order to carry out these repeated reviews? If the purpose of re-assessment is to compensate for the department’s lack of confidence in the first place that those it has already recognised as refugees actually meet the criteria, why should taxpayers pay for such incompetence? Why should genuine refugees and lawful migrants have to pay this heavy price – not only for fraudulent applicants, but for the Home Office’s inability to tell them apart? And why should holders of work visas, whose waiting time for settlement is about to double, and family-route applicants, whose appeal rights are to be curtailed, suffer these collateral consequences?

By contrast, this Government appears utterly unconcerned with the genuine integration of refugee communities, with the practicalities of actually removing illegal immigrants, or with preserving Britain’s precious traditions and values. Its only tools for managing borders and migration are to shift the costs onto taxpayers and to make lawful migrants and real refugees bear the consequences of illegal immigration and bogus asylum claims. This may well be the only ‘tradition’ Labour is currently upholding – but apparently not glorious British tradition.

‘Immigration is part of our nation.’ In Denmark, this may be nothing more than a childish slogan of the progressives. In the United Kingdom, it is both historical tradition and a plain fact. Britain is a country unlike any other. Yet the Labour Government seems to lack any deep understanding of this, just as in the past it repeatedly and blindly abandoned the trade unions that gave birth to Labour itself, and chose instead to recast itself as just another run-of-the-mill social democratic party. By sacrificing the interests of lawful migrants and genuine refugees in order to cover up its failures on illegal immigration, the Labour Government is betraying Britain’s traditional values and the interests of all British taxpayers – including Labour’s own voters.