In addition to established contenders such as the Liberal Democrats, this year for the first time the Pirate Party is also in the election campaign. Pirate Party UK is fielding ten candidates in constituencies in different parts of the country.
The British electoral system differs from the Swedish one in that politicians fight for individual constituencies, not percentages of the entire country’s electorate. Therefore, few believe that any of the British Pirate Party’s candidates have any chance. The betting company Ladbrokes, for example, gives odds of 250-1 for an election win for any of the pirate candidates.
However, 18-year-old candidate Graeme Lambert believes that the unattached position of the Pirate Party speaks for him and the party. He is standing against incumbent Labor politician David Chaytor who was heavily accused in last year’s financial scandal, in which Chaytor and many other MPs were revealed to have made highly questionable but personally beneficial deductions.
– The Pirate Party is a political party completely without corruption. Something that the voters deserve after David Chaytor’s actions, says Graeme Lambert to the site Torrentfreak.
Pirate Party UK’s election manifesto focuses on copyright, privacy and freedom of expression. The party claims to be neither on the right nor on the left in the general political debate.