Skip to main content

Hello. It looks like you’re using an ad blocker that may prevent our website from working properly. To receive the best experience possible, please make sure any ad blockers are switched off, or add https://experience.tinypass.com to your trusted sites, and refresh the page.

If you have any questions or need help you can email us.

I’m standing against Boris Johnson – but I don’t want any votes

Boris Johnson. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/PA Wire. - Credit: PA

WILLIAM TOBIN on why he’s standing against Boris Johnson – but doesn’t want you to vote for him.

I’m standing as a parliamentary candidate in Boris Johnson’s constituency. I have a single purpose – to highlight the unfairness of UK elections and referendums which exclude seven million of us:

– The three million Brits living abroad, excluded by the 15-year rule.

– The perhaps 2.5 million foreign nationals permanently resident in the UK who can’t vote because they’re not Irish or qualifying Commonwealth.

– The 1.5 million 16- and 17-year-olds, who of course can vote in Scottish and Crown dependency elections, and imminently in Welsh ones.

I do not want anyone to vote for me: Zero would be my perfect score. But I do want electors both in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, or elsewhere, to press other candidates to pledge to support to right these injustices.

I also ask electors to cherish their vote, and when they cast it on December 12, to think of us excluded seven million, and our future.

William Tobin

– Send your letters for publication to letters@theneweuropean.co.uk

Hello. It looks like you’re using an ad blocker that may prevent our website from working properly. To receive the best experience possible, please make sure any ad blockers are switched off, or add https://experience.tinypass.com to your trusted sites, and refresh the page.

If you have any questions or need help you can email us.