Remember back in 00s when Pirate Parties were founded all over the world?
Here in Finland Pirate Party was founded in 2008 and was registered as an official party in 2009 after they had collected 5000 supporter cards which are needed to officially register a party in Finland. They were removed from party register in 2015 after they had failed to get any seats in two consecutive parliamentary elections but they collected supporter cards again and were registered again on 2016.
They have never gotten any seats in Finnish nor European parliaments but they did manage to get two seats in municipal elections back in 2017. Petrus Pennanen, one of the elected councillors who also back then was the leader of Pirate Party later left the party and eventually founded a party of his own. During his time in Pirate Party he made an initiative that Pirate Party should be abolished and then merged with Liberal Party “due to their similar ideologies” but the initiative did not find support in Pirate Party’s party conference.
Nowadays the party is still around but they no longer have seats in municipal councils. They are rarely mentioned in media and their core values – such as freedom of information or reformation of copyright laws – are talked lot less than say, 10 years ago. The party will probably be removed from party register after 2023 parliamentary elections but they most likely have enough support to get registered again.
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Germany has one and it had some small success in regional and state politics and got seats in the European Parliament but was never able to enter the national parliament. In the last few years the party has lost all seats in state parliaments and is pretty much insignificant again.
Pirate Party is quite popular here, they are a mainstream party similar to the Green Party in Germany but without that “green” anti-nuclear attitude. Now they have only 4 MPs (out of 200), which is way less than was expected.
Looks like we did have one here in the UK, though they never did win any seats at the local, regional or European level.
For us though the most infamous less known (or joke) party/candidate is Count Binface (previously Lord Buckethead)who stands against the PM in nearly every election and is normally standing behind the PM when they give their press speech wherever that may be (normally a gymnasium or sports centre). A few of his polices were quite good!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Binface
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckethead
In the Netherlands they never outgrown the meme-status since their founding in 2010. Never obained a seat in parlement. Only in the small city of Enkhuizen they won a seat in the last local election. I suspect the name combining with a party leader who is mainly ‘famous’ for being in the Playboy just doesn’t give a serious vibe.
Also, people don’t care for downloading free movies no more, unlike in the 00’s. I know that’s not all what party stands for, but it is mainly associated with it.
Luxembourg’s pirate party may be the most promising party in the country. Their chances of high results are not that great but their growth potential immense. During the last election they broke the 5% mark entering the government but they are underrepresented due to Luxembourg’s regional voting system. Nonetheless two members made it into our parliament of sixty with one of both consistently being among the oppositions most popular politicians.
Their manifesto is extremely progressive and still emphasises online privacy but incorporated other ideas like a trial model of a universal basic income.
They have a decent chance to enter a government within the next couple elections and I could imagine them at over ten percent as they are quite popular among young voters currently
Edit/Addition: they might struggle to get a hold though as Luxembourg’s election system favours larger parties and they have competition in the progressive sphere splitting their voter base sharing it with Volt.
Yes, we started the pirate movement. It’s very obscure, they lost their seats in the EU Parliament, hasnt been able to gain any ground in local, regional or national politics in Sweden. They’ve only gotten less and less votes.
Yes, they are in the parliament and in the government.
The Pirate party was founded in 2009.
They entered the parliament in 2017, after getting 11% of the votes and becoming the 3rd largest party. Between 2017 and 2021 they were in opposition (at that time the government was populists and social democrats suported by the communist party).
For the 2021 election, Pirates joined the STAN party (center to center-right localists) in a coalition and Ivan Bartoš – was expected to even become a prime minister. However the coalition backfired. They got 16% of the vote, which was way less then expected a few months before and on top of that, they only got 4/37 seats within the coalition.
Despite that, they entered the government and they have three ministers.
Their members vary in political ideolodies (some even being far-left communist), but their leaders are generally centrist liberals.
In Iceland the Pirate Party has become a mainstream political party. They currently hold 6 of 63 seats in parliament, and are part of the opposition. They are also present in several municipalities, including Reykjavík where they currently hold 3 out of 23 seats and are part of the governing coalition for the second term in a row.