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The Pirate Party UK launch with all guns blazing.

By Andrew Redfern @ 12th August 2009 10:31 am

Follwing the success of the Swedish Pirate Party a UK version has been launched with a presence on numerous internet social media platforms.

Their official site states it’s three core policies as

• Reform copyright and patent law. We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing and reduce the excessive length of copyright protection, while ensuring that when creative works are sold, it’s the artists who benefit, not monopoly rights holders. We want a patent system that doesn’t stifle innovation or make life saving drugs so expensive that patients die.

• End the excessive surveillance, profiling, tracking and monitoring of innocent people by Government and big businesses.

• Ensure that everyone has real freedom of speech and real freedom to enjoy and participate in our shared culture.

and that has the central message :

In recent years we have seen an unprecedented onslaught on the rights of the individual. We are treated like criminals when we share entertainment digitally, even though this is just the modern equivalent of lending a book or a DVD to a friend. We look on helpless as our culture and heritage, so important for binding our society together, is eroded and privatised.

Now there is a democratic alternative. We, the people, can take back our rights. We, the people, can overturn the fat cats and the corrupt MPs who hold our nation’s cultural treasures to ransom, ignore our democratic wishes and undermine our civil liberties.

The internet has turned our world into a global village. Ideas can be shared at incredible speed, and at negligible cost. The benefits are plain to see, but as a result, many vested interests are threatened. The old guard works hard to preserve their power and their privilege, so we must work hard for our freedom. The Pirate Party offers an alternative to the last century’s struggles between political left and political right. We are open to anyone and everyone who wants to live in a fair and open society.

The UK Party follows in the wake of launches in other countries and aims to participate in the 2010 UK General Elections. So far it has a Twitter feed, Facebook account and a Wikipedia page as well as blogs, forums and an IRC chatroom.

The party leader is Andrew Robinson and yesterday he announced that the Pirate Party was now an official UK political party

The long-awaited news has finally arrived, the Pirate Party UK is now officially registered as a political party! This means we can raise funds, have Pirate Party Candidates at the next general election, and do all the other things that political parties do. Getting to this stage has been a long process, we’ve had to elect officers, raise funds, fill out forms, meet with some (very helpful) people at the Electoral Commission, and learn far more about electoral law and the special party funding rules that apply to Gibraltar than any same person would ever want to.

It is generally difficult for one policy parties to break into the mainstream of politics however as a champion for internet freedoms it is sure to have some impact. It is already seeking donations and allowing visitors to it’s site to download and print campaign posters with maxims such as “Sharing is Caring” and “Our Copyright Law needs to be fixed”.

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