davieG Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 BBC All across Europe, disgruntled voters are deserting the established parties, and in Germany, it is the Pirate Party they are turning to. At regional elections at the end of April, they got 8% of the vote, enough to give them seats in the state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein, in the far north of Germany. It is the third state in which they now have people in parliament, making law. In Berlin, they have 15 members of the legislature. This weekend, they may well do the same in the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state which is as big as many European countries and includes Cologne, Duesseldorf and the Ruhr conurbation. But it is an unconventional party like no other. Their recent conference was a riot of colour and noise. Some members were dressed as pirates, complete with three-cornered hats. Others played in a children's pool filled with plastic balls, diving in and bursting out from under the surface. Granted, there were formal speeches from the platform, but the hall was filled with people glued to their laptops on lines of trestle tables. They seemed to participate in the conference with one ear listening to the real world, but two eyes staring into cyberspace, their brains flitting in between the two. They are unconventional in another way, too. They do not have the usual range of policies on all the usual - and important - issues, like the detail of tax rates or how to save the euro. But the unconventional approach is working. One of their leaders, Matthias Schrade, told the BBC that the appeal of the Pirates lay in the fact that they were trying to get back power from politicians and give it to ordinary people. "We offer what people want. People are really angry at all the other parties because they don't do what politicians should do. We offer transparency, we offer participation. We offer basic democracy." 'Liquid Democracy' Their method of policy-making illustrates their unconventional approach to policy-making. They call it "Liquid Democracy" and it involves members making suggestions online which then get bounced around through chat rooms, which they call Pirate Pads, before emerging from cyberspace into the real world as policy. Polls suggest that the biggest support for the Pirates is among those aged under 34. The party has taken votes from the Left Party and the Greens, but it has also drawn in new voters. So as national elections loom in 2013, other parties are trying to work out what to make of them. In a country which rules by coalition, small parties have the power to decide who forms the government. Can the party of the moment be a party of the future? One of the difficulties is that the very essence of the Pirate Party is informality. The Pirate Party as a movement started in Sweden in early 2006, with others, including the German Pirate Party, soon following. The name stems from the argument over intellectual property on the web. Owners of intellectual property, like music publishers, argue that those who just download their material without paying are "pirates", so the name stuck to those who argued for more freedom to source material on the internet, as the pirate parties invariably do. In Sweden, there are two Pirate Party MEPs. In Germany, the party has no members in the national parliament, the Bundestag, but it is sweeping forward into state legislatures. In Berlin, for example, they espouse policies usually associated with both the left - like a guaranteed income for all - and with the right - like antipathy towards government regulation of the internet. Libertarian instincts They have libertarian, democratic instincts which can sit on the right of politics or the left. The big question is whether their regional success will translate into national success when the federal government is up for grabs next year. Broadly, national opinion polls have the Christian Democrats of Chancellor Angela Merkel bumping along at around 36%. The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, receives just 26%. In other words, both need an alliance. But support for the pro-business Free Democrats, currently in government with Ms Merkel, has been collapsing. So, who might fill the gap? In the past, it has been the Greens, but they are now neck-and-neck with the Pirates. Accordingly, the Pirates could make or break a government. It is the Left Party which is the most vulnerable to their rise, according to political scientist Gero Neugebauer of the Free University in Berlin:"That means it's becoming harder for the Social Democrats and the Greens to get a majority in 2013." He says their lack of policy so far has been an asset because they say policy comes from the bottom, not the top. "That's the trick. They say 'we don't know, you don't know - so we'll find the answer together'." "The reason for their quick growth is that they are new and that's enough at the moment. But not in the long run." But in the short run, the Pirates are riding a wave of disgruntlement. And disgruntlement does not look like it is going out of fashion any time soon. It may still be here to sweep the Pirates into the Bundestag next year.
Daggers Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 No. But decent normal people, who have experience of life and working for a living, standing as independents in every ward could.
Webbo Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 He says their lack of policy so far has been an asset because they say policy comes from the bottom, not the top. "That's the trick. They say 'we don't know, you don't know - so we'll find the answer together'." "The reason for their quick growth is that they are new and that's enough at the moment. But not in the long run." But in the short run, the Pirates are riding a wave of disgruntlement. And disgruntlement does not look like it is going out of fashion any time soon. It may still be here to sweep the Pirates into the Bundestag next year. In other words, vote for us because we're not the others. How can you vote a party with no policies? How do you know what you're voting for?
davieG Posted 12 May 2012 Author Posted 12 May 2012 No. But decent normal people, who have experience of life and working for a living, standing as independents in every ward could. I'd lie to think that could happen but in the celebrity driven sheeplike world we live in I doubt it, I'd say the Pirate Party would have a better chance it only needs to get some momentum on facebook and people wil be clamouring to be associated with it no matter what it stood for.
davieG Posted 12 May 2012 Author Posted 12 May 2012 In other words, vote for us because we're not the others. How can you vote a party with no policies? How do you know what you're voting for? I guess some of the attraction is that you get a better chance of influencing the policy because it is not entrenched left or right and could change as circumstances change, I don't see that available from our current 3 main parties who will say black is white rather than accept the other party has a good idea or solution, well at least publicly. I think the real answer is to ask why are so many people so disillusioned with the current parties.
Daggers Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 I'd lie to think that could happen You sound like a product of the current system
Webbo Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 No. But decent normal people, who have experience of life and working for a living, standing as independents in every ward could. I'd like to get rid of full time professional councillors and have a rule that no one could stand for parliament until they held down a proper job (not working as an advisor or union activist) for 5 years.
Zingari Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 I'd vote for Webbo , but i know he'd only paper over the cracks
davieG Posted 12 May 2012 Author Posted 12 May 2012 You sound like a product of the current system I am.
Guest Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 As much as I understand the need to revolt against the useless politicians we have , voting for someone with no policies is lunacy. In the London Mayorial election I was surprised that more people didn't vote for the independant lady though.
dave the caveman Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 They will be perfect for the type of people who protest vote. The type of people who are generally ignorant regarding politics and take their (almost always negative) opinions from the media or from fashionable public perceptions. That type of person certainly doesn't care for the impossibly complex task of creating well-balanced and fair policies, so a party who just ignores the whole policy thing is perfect. Who needs policies? Chill out, let's just grab a coffee from Starbucks and everything will be ok. How to create a following: Step 1) promise people 'things will be better, you will be better off!' Step 2) there is no step 2, once step 1 is complete people will follow you no matter how fantastically stupid and flawed your ideas are
davieG Posted 12 May 2012 Author Posted 12 May 2012 It's been an official UK party since '09. They're not very good at publicising themselves then not to get a mention in that report.
Stadt Posted 12 May 2012 Posted 12 May 2012 aarrrgghh , oi reckon it moight This is how I imagine Northern Irish pronunciations would be spelt.
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