Pirate Party runs aground in European Parliamentary elections Voters have not been entirely kind to The Pirate Party in elections for the European Parliament. Sweden's two Pirate Party European Members of Parliament have not been re-elected, with the local authorities tally suggesting a collapse in the Party's vote to 2.2 per cent, down from 2009's 7.1 per cent. In Finland, where Pirate …
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"It might appeal to the sort of voter who thought it was cool to vote pirate last time" + "Your friendly kiwis"
You really thought it was a friendly thing to say?
OK, no upside-down jokes today. Pirate parties got a lot of protest votes, because disappointment with the mainstream political parties runs deep. This should be quite familiar feeling for the people all over the world. Nothing to sneer at.
Exactly the same scenario for Marine Le Penn, the French far right winger.
The extreme right wingers do not have to worry about being PC or about using the usual humdrum media tactics, as a consequence they are now gaining large percentages of the available votes, why : they speak and make themselves understood to people , which many of todays politicians have forgotten . The extreme right wingers have also tamed down a bit in recent years and some of them, like Marine Le Penn, actually have some reasonable ideas, please note the word "some" and not "all".
When the mainstream politicians have nothing left to offer is anyone really surprised to see the pendulum swinging futher and further out.
Contemporary politicians don't really belong to the moderate right or moderate left sympathies, they simply belong to "he who pays". I would safely presume that most politicians would be happy to change to opposing parties/cabinets/idealogies for the no other reason that being able to remain with a cushy job for which you can't get punished for doing wrong.
The current political methods have had their day, it's time to move on and start afresh. ( Although usually that means war).
The extreme right wingers do not have to worry about being PC or about using the usual humdrum media tactics, as a consequence they are now gaining large percentages of the available votes, why : they speak and make themselves understood to people
You could take "right wingers: out of that, it would still be true. Any loudmouth with any fundamentalist point of view will stand out.
It worked for Ian Paisley for years. When everyone else is sitting on the fence, any politician with the brass neck to stand up and say "fuck them all, I'll see you're alright" will get votes. You hear the same thing said about Paisley, Farage, the Le Pens, "I don't like their views on xxxx, but at least they stand up and say what they think." It's the MiliCleggOons of the current scene that see the whole thing as a business, and try and approach an election the way they would an AGM, then they try to follow what their shareholders want.
One of these days they'll realise that people vote to choose leaders, no-one votes to choose followers.
"The success of UKIP is down to voters wanting to stick two fingers up to the 'main' parties"
No - it's far more down to many of us being fed up with the amount of third world immigrants and other foreigners being allowed into the country, and UKIP being the only party really likely to do anything about it.
> The success of UKIP is down to voters wanting to stick two fingers up to the 'main' parties.
I have no particular love for the Greens, but if you (or anyone else) had actually had a chance to find out anything about their manifesto and intentions they could have discovered that they, too, had an anti-Europe stance and some reasonably credible and sensible policies.
See this guy's blog for some thought provoking comment: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/green-party-protest-vote-eu.html
Unfortunately they (and anyone else) were totally drowned out by the whole Farrage farrago even though they managed to knock the Lib Dems into fifth place.
I'm more a fan of de centralization, and having people who know what they're talking about in particular areas of government.
Right now government is business men and economists. I'd rather see educators talking about education, doctors and scientists talking about health.
Likewise I'd rather see power taken out of London and redistributed to local authorities. I also personally believe that there's far too much bureaucracy (everywhere not just in government) and would like to see red tape slashed. (I'm actually convinced bureaucracy wise we're going to wind up like futurama)
No strong inclination either way with the EU. Immigrants my only rule is "if they can speak english up to a decent standard"
So for the politicos which parties would you say best match my warped views.
You could say the same about the main parties too, why should any party receive more or less press than the others? The main 3 parties still get far more TV coverage over a year than any other party. There is a thing called freedom of speech you know, seems to me a lot of people would rather these people be censored, and not receive any press coverage just because they don't like the point of view. Which to be honest, is a far more insidious position than any of these parties themselves hold.
Maybe no-one could understand what they were saying ... ?
The pirate party in Germany has gone to the dogs - infiltrated by either complete idiots or shills posing as complete idiots. It's no longer a sane choice. Actually it wasn't one from the point they declared they'd vote with the Greens on any issue they did not have a position on.
I voted for those horrible populistic right wingers. Populistic is wrong of course because politicians must never have the concerns of their constituency in mind and right winger means everyone who takes votes away from us.
There's a good chance I'm not voting for them in the next but one election (next is local, that's strictly candidate based). That chance will turn into a certainty if they do go into a block with the Tories as they have threatened to.
the German wing of the pirate party has effectively been taken over by the "ANTIFA" - a violent arm of wannabe communists. Reda's first twitter post is well in line with that. Freedom? Forget it - let's fight against the right wing!
Btw: Not so long ago they were on track to reach 5%. Now they celebrate 1.4%. Pathetic!
AC: You better don't mess with the good democrats of the ANTIFA, or else...
"The UK's three Pirate candidates got nowhere near Reda's vote: they appear to have collectively won fewer than 10,000 votes, or just 0.05 per cent of those cast."
Which would be a valid statement if the election was a national PR system. It's not. It's a regional constituency. As they were only on the ballot in the North West region, giving their votes in context to people they couldn't possibly get votes from is.... misleading.
The reality was 0.49%.
There were also local elections the same day and in Manchester, Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye got 3.75% (in a single seat, first past the post election, which is traditionally harder on small parties) All parties have complained about just how big the NW constituency is and judging by reactions on twitter after the announcements, the lower vote is probably down to just not being able to reach everyone.
Matches with down in Vassell ward, in Lambeth where another Pirate candidate was on the local ballot, and despite running a 'snap campaign' (last month or two only) managed 1.6%
However you look at these they are poor results. The pirate party has lost its way by trying too hard to be a grown up party with a sensible manifesto. This is madness they are 20 years away at best from winning a seat. This means they should adopt the UKIP protest vote position. Single Issue laser focus. They should also have something very clear to differentiate them such as direct democracy. I suggested this to the leadership and got the impression that was too radical. As if being too radical was an issue for a party called the pirate party.
"Green policies are pretty well aligned with Pirate Party policies, so maybe try working together instead of inventing yet another party."
They should merge and rebrand themselves as the Soylent Green Party... just for the opportunity to make use of the slogan 'Soylent Green is (for the) People'! ;)
The real problem for Europe is what the abandonment of 'protest' groups like the Pirate Party will lead to. The established European parties in power will be spooked, they know they have seriously p*ssed off the electorate when they abandon protest groups and vote in numbers for extreme groups. The problem is the likely reaction from the established parties.
It is highly unlikely that they will think about what they need to do for the best of Europe and will instead think what is best for their next election result. Merkel's abandoning of nuke power to stifle the Green vote was an excellent example of such short-term thinking. In Europe, that means the Socialists, who have paid only lip service to austerity and cost cuts, will now argue that they need to increase spending in order to appease the voters. Such short-term vote-buying will simply stall the European recovery or lead to another boom-and-bust cycle.
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