Pirate Party UK Officially Registered
Written by Ernesto on August 11, 2009The UK Pirate Party has been officially registered at the Electoral Commission and is hoping to follow in the footsteps of its successful counterpart in Sweden. With all the recent controversy surrounding anti-piracy legislation and lawyers going after alleged file-sharers, the party has become necessity.
In June the Swedish Pirate Party shocked its critics and secured a seat in the European Parliament, with no less than 7.1 percent of the vote. The Pirates received more votes from those under 30 than any other party in Sweden, which went beyond all expectations.
This achievement motivated supporters of the Party’s ideals in other countries to become active as well. Last month the Swiss Pirate Party was founded and the Canadians are mobilizing too. In the UK the local Pirate Party hasn’t been sitting still either, quite the opposite.
Today the Pirate Party UK announced that they are officially registered at the Electoral Commission. The paperwork is done and all the bureaucracy has been dealt with, so now the party’s biggest challenge is to increase its membership.
“Now the party can really start. It’s time for us to tell the world that we exist, to recruit members, raise funds and gear up to fight the General Election,” Pirate Party Chairman, Andrew Robinson told TorrentFreak. “The officers and web team have built the framework that the party needs to get going, now it’s time for the public to make things happen,” he added.
Increasingly the UK copyright lobby is pushing politicians, ISPs and law enforcement to take action against those accused of copyright infringement. If anywhere, a Party devoted to protecting online privacy and weeding out copyright abuse is much needed in Britain. However, they can’t do much without the help of actively involved members.
“Join the party, tell the media about the party, tell your friends about the party, take part in policy and news debates on the forum, join our Facebook group, donate or set up a regular payment to provide financial support, set up a branch in your constituency, school or workplace,” Robinson suggests, emphasizing that the success of Britain’s newest party depends on its members.
All over the world the Pirate Party movement is growing, with new parties being founded every month. For those who want to get involved locally, a full list of all the parties can be found at Pirate Party International.
Pirate Party UK Campaign Poster
Previously: ISPs Refuse to Block Cheap Russian Music Sites
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68 Responses
Some good news finally. In the UK we always seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to copyright. Heck it is even illegal to burn cds you have bought for use on an mp3 player.
Hopefully this lot can do something to change that.
Let’s see how far a pirate party will get with Britain’s wholly corrupt political system.
:) nice one
UK is doomed already. They want to put up cameras inside criminals livingspaces so they can be monitered.
Actually its not criminals living places just the “worst” 20000 in britain, they have not been found guilty of anything so there not criminals.
Anyhow remember the cctv in public places where originally meant to be in the most crime ridden areas now its everywhere and i mean everywhere.
At least i know that the uk pirate party has at least 1 vote here :)
-Jay
Good news indeed. Best wishes from the canadian Pirate Party!
I’m trying to think of a constituency where they might actually get a parliamentary seat.
About time the UK got someone like this. Backing them 100%
This will actually make me bother voting
If the BNP can get a constituency you can bet the Uk pirate party can.. if not then we live in a very sad world.
If they hope to get a seat, they will also need to tackle other issues other than just privacy and copyright. Issues such as immigration, the environment, taxes, etc.
Good luck to them, they certainly have my vote. We need more people like this in the UK.
great stuff
Print flyers for the Pirate Party. Stick them up everywhere. Tell people about it, we can make a change!!!!
Unlike Sweden Britain has a ditrict system so smaller parties can hardly ever get any seats
they have no chance
Yea!
what a complete waste of time don’t bother silly people.
Australian are in dire straits for a pirate party, what happens there is a shame there is no respect for costumers whatsoever.
Canadians come to mind too but there at least the government ask or make an effort to ask how it should proceed and future will tell if they are for real, the U.S. will only submit if it is bullied into it.
Nice to see a political movement growing, but civil side have to grow or the political side will have no real effect.
Where are the civil institutions that we the people could contribute to pay for other people to stay on top off things 24/7 like the EFF or ACLU where is the Pirates Foundation to keep an eye on the parliaments of the world, politicians, and take action when needed in the form of lawsuits, lobbying and etc like the EFF does for the U.S.? I know the EFF does operate outside the U.S. I do think they do in the U.K. but are little and in need of help.
yaaay! go Britain! hopefully this’ll occur in Ukraine as well some day…
I hope they do get a seat somewhere but even if they don’t they can still influence change. Hopefully they will get enough votes to be noticed by the mainstream media and the other political parties. Other parties will be alerted to the large group of people who want to put an end to copyright abuse and will hopefully form policy’s of their own regarding the issue.
i’m already doing some pr work on several popular sites ,, get the word out u guys ,, time for change ;P
Good work! I wish UK Pirate Party the best luck in the world…
More parties, more countries, UNITED.
I’m looking forward to see when a “Partido Pirata” rises here in Portugal :)
A “Partido pirata” in Portugal is not needed, we don’t have such draconian laws, if we had such laws then people would kick the “merda” out of Socrates’ ass.
http://partidopirata.co.cc/
Portugal does have a pirate party…
@5
Yeah, but think about it.
Those 20,000 homes will become every home in 1984land, and then after monitoring those who don’t vote Labour at the next general election, you’ll find that they will “mysteriously” disappear.
@18
Ukraine has a Pirate Party.
Can’t wait when the US of A will get one, i might even join too.
[Mods note: how about http://torrentfreak.com/us-pirate-party-docks-in-california-090129/ ]
There’s a unique opportunity for the UK’s Pirate Party, given how Britain is turning into a police state day by day. Copyright, guys, is the less of your problems. Your pirate party should start by getting rid of the anti-youth propaganda and the cctv cameras.
And the US does have a Pirate Party… but I kind of don’t agree with anything in their agenda other than the copyright issues.
good to know the people will unite over something, even if its about copyright/piracy to go vote. its good to see the humans have their priorities in order.
see you all in hell
The United Kingdom doesn’t have party-list proportional representation in the Commons, which is used in Sweden and the European Parliament. There are plenty of small political parties which dot the UK political landscape, most of which have never held a seat in the Commons and a few of which were lucky enough to gain a single defector from one of the larger parties who merely happens to have a safe constituency (think Galloway with RESPECT).
The PPUK may have a marginally-better shot at the Greater London Assembly, Welsh Assembly or Holyrood (all party-list PR). Partnering with the Green Party, they may even get a few local council seats if they run sophisticated campaigns. But Commons? Only a Jorge Tauss-like defection from a major parliamentary party seems like a remotely likely scenario.
Still, it is a pity that people who are for sharing call sharing “piracy”. And I cannot call myself a pirate because I do not take over ships and do not kill people on them. I am just an ordinary decent person who believes that information should be shared. So while this news seems to be good, I do not like the direction it is all taking. Funny if most of the planet will have “pirate” political parties.
Great piece of news to wake up to… ok, so I can’t say I expect them to go all the way to number 10 but at the end of the day, if we drum up enough support a few of our main party members might catch on that things need to change.
Piracy restricts near everyone
I for one see the Orwellian police state alive in Washington. and yes #27 the party is a bit PG but perhaps if we push this hard enough, we could see some much needed change such as the cctv in the UK being removed (we can all wish right?)
http://www.pirate-party.us/
USA Begin.
Congrats to UK.
This is going to fail very fast. Because it has only just been created and most of it’s support is under voting age it will do embarressingly bad in the next election.
There is a £500 enrty to contest ONE constituancy, there is no chance that the PP will have a large enough budget to stand in many areas so you will probably not be able to vote for them since you can’t vote in a different constituancy.
The only hope for them is to become a pressure group and focus on demonstration, legislation and education. It is naive for them to think they can have any impact, especially since their leaders have no political background and seem to think that they have popular support which unfortunatly they do not.
People will be to busy voting Conservative in our next election to even bother with the small parties. But even less will vote, I can see the electoral turnout being less than the 49% in 2001.
Yay for the UK! You need it!
And as for the CCTV-shit you got, it sure is different from Sweden… I went to London a couple of months ago. Landed in Greenwich (I think.. Something like that anyway), I counted 326 (If I remember correctly.. It was +300 anyway) cameras on my way out of the airport.
I did the same thing when I returned to Sweden, Arlanda. Counted 11 cameras….
count on my vote! :)
Count my vote. I Support the Pirate Party !
@Rayne
Pirat is just a word nothing more.
it only have the meaning the people give to it.
there is nothing wrong in givong this word a new esciting meaning.
To if they even want to attept at winning a seat at the election next year I think they should try and stand in places with a high proportion of students and come up with some more ’student friendly’ policies like about tuition fees and what not, I mean students are the ones most likely to get behind a minor party and rebel against the establishment
Whether or not they get a seat in the Commons or not is beside the point. That’s more of a boon from creating opinion and debate.
All political parties take time to gather support. Look at UKIP everyone scoffed their socks off when they announced themselves. Few years down the line they are second most succesfull British party in the European Elections.
Pirate party will have to address the issue of EU membership at some point otherwise all this Freedom of Speech and freedom of corruption will just be hot air.
finally a reason to vote!
:D
V for Vendetta
Bunch of dumbasses. Such a shame.
It was only a matter of time before someone decided to set up an anti-copyright party… but i hoped that the people who did it would have more sense than to call the party ‘Pirate Party’.
We’re British for God’s sake – we’re not brash or brazen.
The ‘Anti-Copyright Party’ or the ‘Digital Party’ would have been waaaay better choices.
“The officers and web team have built the framework that the party needs to get going, now it’s time for the public to make things happen,”
Let me translate – ‘ I have done the bare minimum to get this party officially recognized, now i’m going to sit back and let enthusiastic people do all the work, whilst i collect the ‘regular payment to provide financial support’ checks”.
What a disapointment :(
I support net neutrality unwaveringly, but I’m on the fence about this Pirate Party business. It seems great on the facade, but will it benefit or inhibit us in the long run? Plus, PIRATE party? Really? Last I checked, I download and upload torrents, contribute to peer-to-peer networks, support net neutrality avidly, and have been coding free programs shared on the web since ‘93. Why the hell is my mascot a violent, dirty seaman??? To be a pirate would be to imply that what I do is illegal and immoral, while I, and surely all of you, can easily say that this is not the case.
This article really seems to be very interesting. After a long time,there would have a good new finally for UK.
http://hostwisely.com
I am going to have to agree with #46 John and #47 Phrosty.
Thanks Edward and you’re spot on Phrosty ;]
Perhaps we should make our own party? :P Hahah
One word: Yauba.
If you don’t want search engines snooping on your results, it’s the only way to go. They even have anonymous torrent search in some of their country versions like Australia:
http://au.yauba.com/?q=BBC&target=torrent
well I know who my vote is going to.
They got my vote!
@ 46, 47, 49
The choice of name is not our own, it is what file-sharers have been branded as by the faceless corporations. The Government claimed recently that there are 7 million pirates in the UK, bear in mind that only 5-6 million voted Labour at the last general election
I vote Green, partly because their attitude to filesharing is cool.
:) They will get my vote.
The mainstream politicos in the UK are all phail. They all saw this during the EU elections. Labour who are currently in power came FOURTH!
The people DEMAND change and we WILL have change.
Now… wait for the party to be outlawed as they are trying to do to with other parties.
Regarding the pirate labelling.
I said this once. I am going to say it again. How about “Peerate”. You guys might have a better one than mine. Let’s get inventin’
The eParty
Finally! Now lets get down to business!
you kids are so stupid. politics is not a joke.
Better late then never :)
Google .neo.style$|nvDX – strap on dildo
They don’t stand a change against my strap on dildo powers
I see nothing wrong with calling it the Pirate Party. We have been sold out by our politicians. Copyright was supposed to be for a LIMITED time then the work goes into the public domain. Now it’s life of artist + 70 years!! If they were really strict on all works created within the last 10 years (a reasonable copyright length) but everything else was in the public domain, that would be a very fair deal. In the meantime, fight fire with fire, support the Pirate Party in your country.
I’d give my full support if I were British. It’s about time the industry gets some official opposition for their shameless acts.
The name is pretty adequate too as the words piracy, pirate and the likes are now used to classify innocent people along with the criminals. I do hope the pirate parties take actions against the people actually making money selling copies on the streets and show the industry and the law makers where they should be striking.
@60
Actually politics is a joke in the UK, as is much of the legal and financial systems; its pwned by corporations (legal psychopaths), via the corrupt Political Class. See “The Corporation”, Reaper series 2 episode 12, and
http://www.tpuc.org, for the blunt facts.
Plato’s Democracy is a scam, he gave modern politicians all the rationalisations, and conceptual tools, to con us into thinking we have a real choice in such a system.
We won’t see real change until the state gets back to basics, like defence of individual sovereignty, and by extension national sovereignty, and proper defense of Common (Lawful) Law, before commercial law i.e. eject the PC corruption, foreign interference (including the EU), and wasted ‘charity’ abroad, and bring back proper Capitalism, not this perveted corporate externalisation people mistakenly call Capitalism.
Copyright abuse is only part of the attacks against individual sovereignty, so single issue parties like this are not the solution.
If I thought any party could help, I’d prefer the Libertarian Party UK, over the corrupted UKIP, however I see the BNP as more capable of fighting the major party tyranny, despite their Socialist flaws.
’bout time :D
is this still run by the PunkTorrents admin?
great going UK! Hopefully you’ll get that internal democracy working right away!
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