Why I’m voting for None Of The Above

To choose is to endorse. But this is an election in which, for myriad reasons, all the options are deplorable. To choose one of them, even on a least-bad basis, feels like a kind of capitulation. So I will vote tomorrow but I shall, for the first time, spoil my ballot. None of the Above has my vote.

I want no part of this election and desire no share, however tiny, of the responsibility that comes with endorsing any of the candidates representing the major parties. To choose is to sanction and, in this election, that’s intolerable and impossible.

So last night’s YouGov MRP number-crunching was oddly cheering. For it raised the possibility, still faint perhaps but alive nonetheless, that this really could be an election without winners. That is the only result the parties merit; the only conscionable outcome. The tightening of a race no-one deserves to win felt like the first bit of happy news we’ve received in some time.

I still suspect Boris Johnson will be returned to Downing Street but this campaign has confirmed his limitations and offered a preview of the government he might lead, given the opportunity.