back to article Pirate Party UK sinks on maiden voyage

The Pirate Party UK put in a dismal performance at the General Election last night, after its nine candidates garnered a total of just 1,127 votes between them with one result still to come in. The party's leader, Andrew Robinson - who picked up just 173 votes in Worcester - claimed his anti-copyright outfit had a "relatively …

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  1. Joe Burmeister

    No one will vote for them until there is PR

    We need a PR system then it is worth voting for parties like this. That's my feelings anyway.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Wrong!

      It is never, ever worth voting for single issue parties.

      1. I didn't do IT.
        Thumb Down

        Re: Not worth voting single issue party

        I agree.

        So why did New Labour (single issue - control everyone/everything) get any votes?

        Anyone? You in the back? Oh, sorry - that's a coatrack.

        Anyone?...

        1. Josh Fisher

          Re: Not worth voting single issue party

          Heh! Yes, aren't all socialist parties everywhere single issue? My guess is that the thousand odd voters who voted for Pirate Party candidates were simply voting against the incumbent. Given the record of those who supposedly represent me here in the US, simply voting against all incumbents is beginning to look like the logical choice.

    2. Throatwobbler Mangrove

      yeah but

      Many PR systems have a threshold (often 5%) before parties would get any representation in parliament. Under those circumstances, 0.3% would still equal bugger all MPs. (But obviously it depends on exactly what type of voting system was adopted).

    3. Code Monkey

      I agree with Joe

      I agree with the first part of your title and comment:

      "No one will vote for them"

      "We need a PR system"

      Brief is best

  2. lglethal Silver badge
    FAIL

    And there we see...

    ... why Proportional Representation is far from the be all and end all for solving British politics!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      they would be outnumbered...

      (by my rough calculations) 6 to 1 by the BNP.

      I'd like to think under those circumstances neither would have much influence on the UK

      1. Duke

        Contrasting with the BNP

        It is worth noting that the BNP spent about 30 times more on just their European Election campaign last year than the PPUK have spent in total - plus they have been around in some form since the 60s. If you can find some other brand new party that managed to get 1300+ votes with less than £15,000 in total financing (including all costs of the Party ever - you could struggle to get a decent car for that much) in an election as significant as yesterday's, then maybe we can compare.

        It is also worth noting that the candidates were scattered all across the country - unlike the other "small" parties, PPUK didn't have seats where there was particularly strong support; there is a low-level of support everywhere, but no major peaks. Still, Scottish and Welsh elections coming up (and they're closer to PR) and possible another General Election soon... now PPUK was advertised on national television, and is officially down on paper, this election may seem less and less of a failure (relative to all the other parties) in time.

        1. PirateSlayer
          Thumb Up

          @Duke

          "It is also worth noting that the candidates were scattered all across the country - unlike the other "small" parties, PPUK didn't have seats where there was particularly strong support"

          ...so, the PP:UK chose seats it had no support in. Excellent allocation of funds! Your next point is that the party has very low levels of support everywhere. Another thing new parties should aspire to!

          Recap:

          PP:UK fought seats where it had virtually no support

          PP:UK support is generally very low nationwide.

          Onwards to victory!!

          1. I didn't do IT.
            Unhappy

            Re: Chose seats without support

            Actually, don't you have to be seated in the area you live? That just means there are places with more support, but no one in that area that could walk away from their (current) job to play footsie with the politicos.

            Because the UK (just like the US) makes it very arduous for "normal" people to run for office, is it any wonder that the people that get voted in are usually rich professional politicians?

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Flame

            @PirateSlayer

            Regardless of some silly general election, file sharing will continue and there's bugger all that the music industry or blatant BPI-arselickers like you can do about it.

            Feel free to rant impotently from your keyboard while I laugh in your face.

        2. Marvin the Martian
          Stop

          "PPUK have low-level support everywhere"

          In conclusion, there's bored people ticking "none of the above" about everywhere in the country? Thanks, I needed your analysis to realize that.

          Could have been briefer though.

  3. PirateSlayer
    FAIL

    Just admit it!

    The Pirate Party UK are a joke!

    Even with proportional representation they would be a joke.

    This 'party' managed to pole 10 times as many votes as my local NUTTER candidate, nationwide! The people have spoken. Now fuck off.

  4. MJI Silver badge

    They had no chance.

    In Worcester it was a key marginal, we wanted Brown out, so voted for Robin Walker, didn't want to risk getting Michael Foster back in.

  5. M2Ys4U
    Go

    You've got to start somewhere...

    The swedes only got a fraction above Tim Dobson's share of the vote in their first elections, and now there are two Piratpartiet MEPs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      MEPs?

      Don't make me laugh. The European Parliament have virtually no real power.

      In general people don't take it seriously and don't care a jot who their MEP is. The result is that the turnout is low so there is no clear consent to be governed. Which is just as well because they don't have any real power. Quite a neat trick that.

  6. Squirrel
    Dead Vulture

    they weren't supposed to win

    muppets. It's about PR and raising awareness.

    Once they've got to the point that it's a house hold name and people understand the concepts... then they've won. Then they'll probably all quit and join lib dems ;)

    1. PirateSlayer
      FAIL

      Muppets?

      Aren't the muppets the kids who set up a POLITICAL PARTY instead of an NGO/ Charity/ Pressure group and in the process wasted a lot of money on fighting an election they could only ever have been embarassed by. A friend of mine laughed last night at the name "Pirate Party" because he thought it was some tosser dressed in a hat with a parrot on his shoulder.

      You have failed to get your message accross and if that was the objective, you could have done it in a far better way (look at excellent organisations like Liberty, Amnesty International). Then again they are proper causes aren't they!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        Re: Proper causes

        Yes, I see. AI's priorities include "Demand Dignity" (fight against poverty and causes), "Individuals at Risk (free prisoners of conscience), "Counter Terror with Justice" (stop using the "War on Terror" as an excuse to piss on people), and "Death Penalty" (abolish). All of this on an international scale (hence their name), putting pressure and exposing from outside the issues as they see them.

        Yeah, I can see the direct parallels to a internal national party that is trying, from within, to demand fair intellectual rights and common individual freedoms for all from one single government.

        Yep, no idea why they didn't join on someone else's bandwagon... Why would any internal number of citizens want to fix their own house when some other group/country/political body can do it from outside, eh? Oh, wait. That's right - It would be like asking EU to come in and call UK gov to task... we see how well that has worked just last year, haven't we?

        And by the way, your government doesn't believe that half of what Amnesty International is campaigning for is "proper", or at least "worth interest". Go against the current practices of the "War on Terror"? But they make UK gov SO MUCH MONEY... Sorry, they'll "stay the course".

        So, obviously AI, et. al. can be ignored just as easily, eh? If you don't do it for yourself, don't cry when no one else does it for you.

      2. Squirrel
        FAIL

        not at all

        The local pirate got a ton of press in the local paper and on facebook. I think that counts as a win for them.

        If it was just another pressure group like ORG, it would have just been ignored.

        Your narrow mind and limited exposure to the wider reality is limiting your potential. You may not agree with them but their approach exposed a lot of people to their cause and highlighted issues like DE act that otherwise was mostly unnoticed outside of the IT industry.

        The name sucks and they could never win, but that's not the point! It's about being informed.

  7. irish donkey

    Hung Paliment - Has been te best result

    This whole Election was run on personalities and not polices.

    Any party which run for a Policies (single or multiple) didn't get a look in.

    Shame

    PR would change that

  8. Paul R
    Pirate

    No candidate

    As a paid up member of the PPUK I was dismayed not to have a candidate to vote for. Bring on PR.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Bye Bye, Freetards

    Does this mean they've spent more on losing their deposits than they ever spent on music? 90 votes in each constituency is a Right Epic Fail.

    Shame. Maybe they can give up politics and get girlfriends now.

    1. PirateSlayer
      Heart

      :D

      I do hope so! Agreed on fail.

      With all that pirated porn at their fingertips, it's unlikely a girlfriend is on the agenda.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Give up politics and get girlfriends

      I thought that was the point of any aspirations of political office?

      All the blow and hookers you could handle? Was the same under Blair as it was under Thatcher in that respect...

  10. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Headmaster

    PR

    Has anyone ever claimed that PR is the be all and end all for British politics ?

    While having 600+ MP's all representing some minority interests would most likely be a nightmare I suspect it's unlikely to happen and I'm sure it could be accommodated anyway. It's got to be fairer than what we have now which on results so far (E&OE) looks to be ...

    Popular vote and seats if under PR -

    Con 37% (241)

    Lab 30% (195)

    LD 23% (176)

    Actual seats -

    Con 291 (44%)

    Lab 251 (38%)

    LD 52 (8%)

    That a party who gets near a quarter of votes cast ends up with less than a tenth of seats doesn't seem in anyway fair to me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      it's not fair...

      I don't want a "fair" government, I want an effective one.

      PR gives you government like Italy.

      1. Cazzo Enorme

        @Anonymous Coward

        "PR gives you government like Italy."

        Not necessarily. In Germany, weak coalitions are avoided by using a variant of "first past the post" and proportional representation that requires a party to reach a sensible threshold for the percentage of votes cast before qualifying for transferable votes. This limits the impact of extremist or single issue parties. Italy on the other hand, has used several other variants of proportional representation that doesn't limit the impact of small parties on an already fractured political party system.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Oi knockers!

    At least they're interested in something of interest to themselves and others, not just feathering their own nests with local back-handers and seats on company boards, like half the Labour/Tory shower we have now voted in!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      feathering their own nests...

      ....with lots of lovely nicked films and music.

      and not very interested in much else. (ok: some blather about rights, privacy and freedom. but only when it gets in the way of nicking films and music. You can join a regular party and campaign about that privacy and justice stuff.)

      1. I didn't do IT.
        Thumb Down

        Re: nicked films and music

        Uh, no. [Note: The following is (mostly) opinion. You are free to disagree. I do not claim to represent PPUK, but I believe in them and do support them.]

        Consumer rights: Why is it illegal for a consumer to use the global market to buy a CD from a location where it is less expensive than from the local shop?

        Innovation: Why are software patents being filed for existing ideas and methods of business (which by charter should not be patentable in the first place)?

        Culture: Why are laws being passed that continually extend copyright when (even now) the legal intention is to allow a *limited* time for works to be exclusively controlled? We don't know what would happen if a UK movie were to escape copyright because it hasn't been allowed to happen yet - they keep moving the bar from what was (the most previous time) considered "well and fair". If all the _others_ before *LAST ONE* were "well and fair", what the heck is the *LAST ONE*? What about the *NEXT ONE* (because you know they are going to yell when _this one_ expires, too, eh?)?!

        Nicking? WE WANT TO PAY FOR THEM! A fair price for a decent product, that's all anyone respectably asks. Like it or not, every audio or video recording is a slice of British (and world) culture, true as tea and crumpets (or jaffa cakes and Hobnobs, yum). Obviously there is a market demand (iPlayer's success, anyone?). Don't sit on it because you are worried about "diluting" a "market". Are they not really worried about the comparisons between previous stellar works drawing revenue away from collection sets of "Big Brother 56"? No? PROVE IT!

        Freedom (and the freedom of privacy): What happened to the straight and tall Briton? The one that refused to be bullied by extremists? The one that called their government to task for attempting to control them or force them to live against the ideals of freedom and common rights? Obviously, they were the remaining population from the 40's, who knew first hand the results of the current course of government. They were used to fighting for what was right, and telling people in "power" to shove off if they got too big for their bonnet. It must have been them, because as they died off, Britian became a lot of whining, sniveling children waiting for Nanny to coddle you.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          missed point

          Pirate party (whether you like it or not) is automatically linked by most people with pirate bay and all that stuff. Which was and is all about nicking films and music. If you wanted to start a serious political campaign about all that noble stuff the very worst thing you could have done was get associated with the pirate bay and their branding/imagery because it always was and is just about nicking stuff. Especially difficult to understand your support of them as you profess a dislike for "whining snivelling children".

          So if someone wants to approach these important things from a grown up point if view then fine. Anything calling itself Pirate party is all about nicking films and music I'm afraid. Whining and snivelling because you don't want to pay £20 for a DVD? Hardly Wat Tyler, is it?

  12. DrXym

    Pirate Party - stupid name

    Okay I don't expect these people would have been voted in under any circumstances, but ffs change the name. People looking a "Pirate Party" on the ballot probably thought it was some stupid joke party with no serious agenda.

    1. PirateSlayer
      Megaphone

      Hum.

      They are a stupid joke party.

      I am guessing that people who DID vote for them thought it was a joke too...hence the unexpected high number of votes for these sanctimonious cretins.

  13. Jiminy.Cricket
    Dead Vulture

    Disagree

    PPUK had no illusions going in and this is the end of anything, it's merely a first attempt. How long did the Lib Dems or Green Party have to keep pugging away before they got to the position they are at now?

    Regroup, learn, adapt and above all persevere. This is not over, not by a long shot. As long as there are people in power who will fight against things like the DEA, it is all worthwhile, even if they're not PPUK members

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Pirates are always crooks and steal...

    ...i think they should find the votes from those 1127 people, identify them, and go search their computers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pirate

      Re: Pirates are always crooks and steal

      Yep, sure enough. Just like Sir Francis Drake, William Hill (of the ship "Liverpool"), et. al. All were considered the most dastardly and vicious pirates... by other countries.

      However, since the Declaration of Paris in 1856, we call them "governmental private contractors" now, and like their mercenary forbearers during the 100 years war, are allowed to work for both sides again.

      "...i think they should find the votes from those 1127 people, identify them, and go search their computers."

      But they are also the ones that will still fight for you when *your* computer is searched under the latest Nanny "laws". Its not a matter what is on any computer; just a question of what the gov can find to control *you* with. And if you simply spout off what gov/Murdoch tells you to say, they already own you.

  15. John Barron

    Everything starts somewhere

    Forming a new party, and standing candidates, was an achievement in itself. I know that a year ago when I was first seriously talking about Pirate politics in the UK, it wasn't hard to find people who said "why bother?" and "you won't ever get anywhere".

    But we did get somewhere, we formed a party and stood candidates, and this is our first election not our last. It has of course been a tremendous learning experience for a group of volunteers who have never before "done politics", in a very short time.

    That we stood 9 candidates and took well over 1,000 votes, is down to the hard work of our candidates, volunteers, and most of all we thank all those who voted for us.

    Everything starts somewhere, and this is just the beginning.

    John Barron - PPUK

    1. Thomas 4
      Thumb Up

      Good effort guys

      Don't agree 100% with everything you stand for but it's cool that even a small party can make some headway.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    Web2.0 vs Murdoch's machine

    nuff said.

  17. copsewood
    Pirate

    good on them

    I wouldn't have voted for them if they had stood in my constituency. My name was on the nomination form of the local Liberal Democrat candidate, the party I've been a member of and supported for a few decades now. But any political movement has to start somewhere and I see no harm in a few young people learning about politics the hard way.

    Their arguments have also influenced the stance my own party took on the dogs' dinner known as the Digital Economy Bill. We were in favour of it to start with but ended up against. Yes, single issue parties are for a season: either they develop into something with a useful philosophical input into more areas of life, or they influence others to adopt their specific policies (e.g. as the Monster Raving Loony Party influenced reducing the voting age to 18), or they fail to persuade anyone about anything.

    Besides, someone has to try to replace the benign and comedic influence of Screaming Lord Sutch on UK politics. There's a great need for a bit of harmless fun here, even though Sutch himself could never be replaced.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Huh?

    Sorry for not forming the next government, I'll be sure to give El Reg a heads up next time we fail to do so. I was supporting our candidate in Bethan Green and Bow all night, they only declared some time this afternoon, that's a lot of not sleeping! Very sad to see attacks from El Reg on a strategy we're not even pursuing.

  19. PirateSlayer
    FAIL

    Petulant till the last!

    Is said strategy being a political party and gaining votes? Sort of why people form political parties isn't it?

    Wouldn't it have been better to spend money setting up an NGO to influence government and issue press releases rather than a political party? I see Liberty on the news a lot and they don't have a party. The same goes for other single issue organisations.

    Wasn't this just a massive exercise in vanity by a couple of deluded school children and a paultry rabble of followers?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Independent

    I can't get over the guy who got just 19 votes in Brighton.

    Anybody with a Facebook account would get more than that!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    'Proportional Representation'

    Covers a plethora of systems, some constituency based (like Northern Ireland) some covering the whole country (like Israel). The man is a fool.

  22. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    Happy

    Let me understand this....

    "...the party argued in a statement this morning that had its poorly-funded band of men stood for seats across the country, it would have secured 90,000 votes nationally.

    0.3% swing to Pirates - pretty amazing for a party less than a year old, well done all! Under PR that would be 2 MPs.."

    So they have reflected their figures nationally to arrive at 2 Mps? That's nothing!

    At home yesterday I suggested that the family vote for me. Out of a family of 5, I got three votes (myself, the wife and youngest daughter). If I were to reflect that across my constituency, I would have been in with a wide margin. And across the country, it would be a landslide. But why stop there? Reflect it across the world, and you're reading the a message from the first King of the entire Earth....

    1. DavCrav

      Not that bad an assumption

      Whereas your house is not representative of the country, taking the few constituencies that they stood in might well be...

      Sampling: you've not heard of it.

    2. steogede

      @Dodgy Geezer

      >> At home yesterday I suggested that the family vote for me. Out of a family of 5, I got three votes (myself, the wife and youngest daughter). If I were to reflect that across my constituency, I would have been in with a wide margin.

      That's true, however if you were to reflect that figure nationally and factor in the 'Lib. Dem. Effect' (TM), then 60% of the vote would only give you about 150 seats.

  23. SleepyJohn
    Linux

    Have they not made people think?

    Surely the real purpose of a single issue party is not to try and form a government, or even get MPs elected, but simply to encourage folk to think about their issue. On that basis they seem to have done quite well; thirteen articles on just the Reg, that I know of.

    It is a shame Screaming Lord Sutch couldn't have fronted them.

  24. bluest.one
    Megaphone

    Unconscionable Electoral System.

    A vote for any party other than the Conservative or Labour party counts for so much less under the First Past the Post electoral system. I think the figures are that to elect one LibDem MP, 120,000 votes are required compared to around 30,000 for the so-called 'main two'.

    Citizens of the UK who support parties other than Labour/Conservative are effectively disenfranchised. This is unconscionable in a country that claims to be a democracy, rather than a stitch-up by an incumbent oligarchy.

    People who don't vote Con/Lab need to have their voice heard, need to have their votes count for as much as anyone else's. That is the principle of a demcratic system.

    Voting Reform Now.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  25. Richard L
    Happy

    @Jiminy.Cricket

    "How long did the Lib Dems or Green Party have to keep pugging away before they got to the position they are at now?"

    Well, in the case of the Lib Dems it's arguably 226 years as they are the successors of the Whig Party which was formalised in 1784.

  26. EvilGav 1

    For all the PR . . .

    . . . hand wringers, whining that the Liberals should get more seats due to the number of people voting for them, remember this :

    The Labour party was only formally founded in 1900, prior to that the only 2 parties were the Liberals and Conservatives.

    It took over 20 years for Labour to go from 3rd to 2nd largest party in a General Election.

    It took nearly 25 years before Labour formed a government.

    It took nearly 30 years for them to get a majority governemnt (with just 37% of the popular vote).

    It's also interesting to note that the Liberal party was founded on what we would now consider a Conservative agenda - less state intervention; help those who want to help themselves etc etc. It's not until the great depression when they started down the more left wing route of more and more state intervention.

    As for PR, do you really want an MP who cant garner more than 3rd place in an election ?? Or in the case of some of the other parties who would gain (BNP and Green, for example), would you want some also ran who you barely acknowledged on the voting slip ??

    Ideologically, PR sounds like a nice idea, but it should not be full PR (as in we all vote, the votes are counted and then we divvy up all 650 MP's). Extending the constituency boundaries so there are, say, only 430 of them and then running a first past the post for 430 and PR for the other 220 would probably be as far as you'd really want to take it (going with the assumption that the 430 would be split broadly under the last election split of percentage seats gained, you'd have the Cons getting around 200 FPTP and 80 PR; Lab getting around 170 FPTP and 65 PR; Lib getting around 34 FPTP and 50 PR).

  27. steogede

    There's hope for him yet

    >> The party's leader, Andrew Robinson - who picked up just 173 votes in Worcester - claimed his anti-copyright outfit had a "relatively successful" contest at the ballot box.

    With statements like that, it is clear he has a bright future in politics.

  28. Andrew 19
    Grenade

    I wonder if people's perceptions were affected

    By the association of The Pirate Bay with a certain other non-mainstream political movement?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Their Big Mistake?

    They didn't have a scot for a leader:

    Blair

    Brown

    Cameron

    What can possibly go wrong?

    [WTF is it with the extra blank lines?]

  30. Mark .

    Re: For all the PR...

    EvilGav1: "It's also interesting to note that the Liberal party was founded on what we would now consider a Conservative agenda - less state intervention; help those who want to help themselves etc etc. It's not until the great depression when they started down the more left wing route of more and more state intervention."

    The Liberal Democrats were founded in 1988. Economically they are generally centrist. I'm not sure that historical views are useful - Labour were historically left wing, but now they're more to the right than Lib Dems, I would say.

    "Or in the case of some of the other parties who would gain (BNP and Green, for example), would you want some also ran who you barely acknowledged on the voting slip ??"

    Well that happens under FPTP - we get Labour or Tory, who I don't acknowledge at all. It's called democracy - sometimes that means we have MPs that you personally didn't support. I don't have a problem with Green.

    The issue of the BNP can be solved by simply having a 5% limit for any seats. Or, if you're supporting an unfair system to keep the BNP out, why not just ban the BNP instead?

    There's nothing about FPTP that makes it harder for fascists - if there was a fascist candidate with strong local support but no national support, he'd do better in FPTP than under PR.

    Note that part of the issue is that we have so many MPs. The reason only a seemingly small vote leads to an MP under full PR is that 650 is a large number. If you feel that 90,000 of the whole UK population isn't enough for representation by an MP, then the number of MPs should be reduced.

    Still, we don't necessarily need PR to help the pirate party - even an improved non-PR system like Alternative Vote would allow people to vote woth the pirate party as 1st choice, without wasting votes, as they could still give 2nd choice etc to the other parties.

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