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UK Pirate Party Breaks Election Record

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Ladybbird1

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The Pirate Party is Gaining Momentum around the World.

  • 5 May, 2012, Guardian UK
In Germany and Austria Pirates have good chance of entering the national parliament in the next election, and in the UK things are picking up steam as well.

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In this weeks local elections in the UK, Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye picked up 5% of the vote, beating the Lib Dems.

This result in Manchester is a record for the UK Pirates, but not one that is supposed to last long according to the party.

“This is just the start. We would like to thank all the people who got in touch with us and our candidates, our supporters and activists who worked on these elections and especially those people who put their trust in us and chose to vote Pirate,” they write.
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Guardian UK
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The Pirate Party has six candidates in the UK, in Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, I dont think they will gain a seat at the next election, but you never know

Anything is better than Cameron
 
9 comments
Im supprised with all the SOPA, ACTA and all those other types of bills and with all the rallies againts those bills, the that pirate party hasnt even had more than 10% of votes.

Its like people would rather stand in the streets holding a sign then actually getting out there in voting for people -_-
 
SShiz the problem in the UK especially the North, is that we are over run with Asian immigrants and have been for many years, which has caused many areas of the UK to turn "Asian". More and more of them that have been established for years, have stood for local "seats" and got in.

The Pakistani voters will vote for them, and the rest of any candidates dont really have a chance. Im surprised that the Pirate Party did as well as they did.

Manchester is in the North of the UK.

But that is why many Brits like myself got out and moved to another country.

The Great in Britain is no more..... very sad.

By the way, why havent you joined my site yet? You could post all these
news articles on there as I miss so many. I just dont have the time, and you post some good interesting stuff on here.

I could design a new title for you like "Media" something or other.
 
10%? The thing is that a lot of people like their current status. Why risk changing it? Some things suck, but life in general is good.

Also note that the "Pirate parties" are not politicians but individuals like us. I like that part, and how "liquid" their democracy system is. But as always, some things sound too good.
 
Carnival, your comment;

So great that the people of its former territories are now part of its people.
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Pakistan was never a part of "Great Britains' territories.

If you are referring to the British "Empire", as it was, it was India that was part of that. Pakistan was never even a country during that period, neither was Bangladesh.
 
The Pirate Party continues to gain more supporters, in many countries;

Congratulations On First Elections, Greek Pirate Party
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Rick Falkvinge, The Pirate Party.


While the Germans voted their Piratenpartei into Parliament in Schleswig-Holstein last Sunday, the Greeks also went to the polling stations. The Greek Pirate Party did an amazing first election.

The Greek Pirate Party, Κόμμα Πειρατών Ελλάδας, was founded on January 14 this year. To get 32,487 votes less than four months later – just over half a percent of the Greek votes – is nothing short of phenomenal. Even breaking through to mainstream awareness in four months is phenomenal.
It should be noted that the distance between nothing and 0.5 per cent is much larger than the distance between 0.5 and 5 — once you start hitting 2-3 per cent, you get your own bar in the polls, and become “electableâ€. You have a shot at parliament, so you’re not a wasted vote anymore.
The Greek PP has posted a letter thanking all 32,487 citizens for the confidence. Well done, and classy.
I had the privilege of meeting some of the activists in the Greek PP while I was in Prague last month, at the Pirate Parties International meeting. On that meeting, our Greek brothers and sisters were also taken up in the community.

I think this signifies the depth and breadth of the Pirate Party community and the strength of the underbrush that we come from. Greece is quite diverse from Sweden, where the movement started six years ago, and yet the same political movement can make quite rapid advances in Greece, too. It’s like the difference between Germany’s Berlin and Saarland elections, which were also different and day as night, and still, the Pirate Party prevailed.

I’m really looking forward to the next five years. In the meantime,,,,,Συγχαρητήρια, Ελλάδα.
 
UPDATE

German Pirate Party Scores Fourth Consecutive Election Win

Posted: 13 May 2012 Rick Falkvinge, Founder of The Pirate Party.

Germany: Today, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany went to the polls. This election is always closely watched in Germany, as it is the country’s most populous state. As expected, the Pirate Party won seats and entry into parliament – again – making this the Piratenpartei‘s fourth consecutive win.

After Berlin (8.9%), Saarland (7.4%), and Schleswig-Holstein (8.2%), the time had come to Nordrhein-Westfalen. As the exit polls were just presented, it is clear that the German Pirate Party has achieved its goal and secured seats in a fourth parliament: the exit polls indicate 7.5%, well clearing the five-percent hurdle for entry, and predicting 18 new Pirate Members of Parliament.

As the night progresses, and the actual votes are counted, this number will adjust somewhat. But the exit polls are always precise enough to give the end result with at most one percent unit of deviation in either direction.

This has a number of interesting ramifications. The immediate question is whether the expected weakening of the FDP, Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner, will cause Germany’s government to collapse prematurely. That’s still too early to say – and with them staying in both the Schleswig-Holstein and Nordrhein-Westfalen parliaments (exit polls indicate 8.5% here), the risk of a premature collapse has lessened somewhat.

So we’re realistically looking at one more state election – Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) – before Germany, Europe’s most populous country, goes to elect its parliament in late summer of 2013.

(Germany is a federation of 16 states, each approximately the size of a more normal European country or a typical American state. The state voting today, Nordrhein-Westfalen, is the most populous of them with about 18 million people.)

This leads us to the interesting question – why did Germany of all countries have such breakthrough success with their Pirate Party? I can see five reasons.

The first reason is that the German Piratenpartei was long-term from the get-go. Where most pirate parties are started like any internet project – “we’re going to change the world come next weekend†– the Germans knew they would be around for a long time, and invested early in the organizational foundation for that.

The second reason is timing and ripples on the water. When the Swedish Piratpartiet had its breakthrough in the European Parliament, and was in media all over the world, the German Piratenpartei was able to exploit that momentum when a local minister named Ursula wanted to create a net censorship to fight CP. T-shirts with the name “Zensursula†were common, zensur being German for censorship. The goverment did not win the narrative on that one, and the idea of censorship was abandoned while the Piratenpartei raked in new members. I’d say that this was the breakthrough in activist critical mass.

The third reason is Germany’s federal party support. Having won 1% in the European elections and 2% in the federal elections in 2009 entitled the Piratenpartei to considerable governmental funding, which is paid out to all parties that beat the half-percent mark in elections. This has allowed the Piratenpartei to buy themselves the appearance of an established party out in the streets – their posters and banners are everywhere on paid billboards, as well as on streetlights and more activist-associated locations. But all of it looks professional, yet with a new message. It looks electable, which is key.

The fourth reason is the Piratenpartei‘s early broadening of the party platform. In Sweden, we learned the hard way in 2010 that not enough people will vote a party with a narrow platform to the general parliament. The European parliament was fine, but not the Swedish one. While we were busy running an election campaign, the German pirate party were busy discussing if – and if so, how – their program should be broadened. This was rewarded with 15 seats in the Berlin parliament, which leads me to…

The fifth reason is Berlin and the breakthrough there. In hindsight, Berlin was the perfect breakthrough location. With its characteristics of a melting pot between the government-suspicious East Europe and the progressive West Europe, mixed with a dash of political forward-thinking in the city culture itself, it would have been an obvious election to bet on for a breakthrough. But when it happened last September, it changed the game – and the media spotlight was taken so well care of, that the Piratenpartei managed to convert the progressive Berlin votes to enough votes in the industrial and traditional Saarland to enter into that parliament too.

The Berlin victory of 8.9% was the definite breakthrough into mainstream awareness, and here we are.
 
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