The Pirate Party Now the Biggest Party In Iceland

jrepin writes The Pirate Party now measures as the largest political party in Iceland, according to a new servey from the Icelandic market and research company MMR which regularly surveyes the support for the political parties in Iceland. Support for political parties and the government was surveyed in the period between the 13thand 18th of March. The results show that The Pirate Party has gained increased support. Now, support for The Pirate Party totals 23.9%, compared to their previous 12.8% in the last MMR survey.

Comments

I'm polite so...

[hcs_$reboot]

...I won't ask WTF is that "pirate" party and what are its specificities since it's on /. first page. And why that's not in TFS. but reading wikipedia as usual gives the party's stance. Mainly

The party has not officially taken a position in favour of or against Iceland's accession to the European Union. The party has however concluded the following in a party policy on the European Union:[3] Iceland must never become a member of the European Union unless the membership agreement is put to a referendum after having been presented to the nation in an impartial manner. Should Iceland join the European Union, the country shall be a single constituency in elections to the European Parliament. Should Iceland join the European Union, Icelandic shall be one of its official languages. If negotiations on the accession of Iceland to the European Union halt, or membership is rejected by either party, a review of the agreement on the European Economic Area must be sought, to better ensure Iceland's self-determination. It is unacceptable that Iceland need to take up large part of European legislation through a business agreement without getting representatives or audience.

and the one you were not expecting
Edward Snowden: On 4 July 2013 a bill was introduced in parliament that would, if passed, immediately grant Edward Snowden Icelandic citizenship

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

The page you read up upon doesn't talk specifically about the Icelandic Pirate Party. There is very little connection between the Pirate Party in different nations and that Wikipedia page is an outstanding example to why you shouldn't use Wikipedia as an example.

Re:so

[Opportunist]

If you look closer you might notice that the PP isn't for abolishing copyright, but rather for reducing it to a sensible form. I.e. pretty much what it was allegedly supposed to be: An equalizer between the interests of those who produce and those who consume.

And I don't think we have to go any further than "from the death of the artist plus the lifetime of his grandchildren" to see that it's out of whack.

Re:Sounds like it's time...

[Rei]

BS.

First off, while you can't see it anymore due to a robots.txt page, I could previously show you on the Internet Archives what Landsbankinn's old Icesave page looked like. Just one or two clicks from the front page anyone could go there and read their account insurance policy. The account insurance policy was thus: the primary insurer was a private fund established by the Icelandic government. The secondary insurer was the UK government.

Now, either you put a ton of money into an account without reading the readily accessible information about what was backing the account, meaning you're an idiot, or you're willingly blaming the government of Iceland for something that they never promised to insure

Secondly, the UK and the Netherlands took Iceland to the EFTA court. Guess what? They Lost. The EFTA court ruled that Iceland did indeed follow all EU banking laws and that the private fund met the letter and spirit of the law. Just because your banks chose government backing rather than a private fund doesn't mean that you can retroactively damn us for having not made such a ridiculous decision.

Lastly, the UK government *did* pay out all insured minimums, as the secondary insurer. Meaning that if you lost £30,000, you're complaining about losing money that wasn't bloody insured. Which makes you even more of an idiot and a whiner. Were you really so stupid as to put a huge amount of money into an account without checking what the insured minimum for the account was, and then claim that an entity that never promised to ensure any of your account - the government of Iceland - "stole" it?

Re:Video: Pirate Party Cpt Prime Minister of Icela

[Rei]

Shouldn't be surprising that they wouldn't form a coalition with the Independence or Progress parties.

The Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn) is basically Icelandic Republicans. It's too good of an analogy not to make. If Republicans in the US like it, they like it. They're maybe not as hard on the social conservatism, but economic, yeah, they can party with the best of them in the US Republican Party. Anti-EU.

The Progress Party (Framsóknarflokkurinn)... this is a beast that you really aren't familiar with in the US. Sometimes they're referred to as right-populism, but really I think the best way to describe them is the "Idiot Party". Generally they do terrible in the polls right up until a couple weeks before the election, when they come out with some Big, Super Plan, which basically amounts to "We're going to give you tons of money, and you're never going to have to pay for it, like ,not EVERS!" There's so little time before the election that idiots get enough time to hear about it but not enough time to hear about how utterly terrible it is, and Framsóknarflokkurinn surges in the polls... then their support quickly collapses after the election, but who cares about it then? They're in government and can enrich themselves and their friends to their heart's content. Anti-EU.

The Pirates on the other hand could easily form a coalition with a number of other parties:

Samfylkingin (not sure what the English translation for them usually is)... as much as Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn is Iceland's Republicans, these people are really Iceland's democrats: left-center pragmatists. But then again, the left in Iceland is further left than the US. Pro-EU.

Left Greens (Vinstri Grænir): Yeah, there's also a Right Greens, but they're a small party, no need to talk about them. The Left Greens are a traditional Green Party... Left-Idealists. Anti-EU.

Bright Future (Björt Framtíð): Relatively new party. They're another leftist party, with some stances matching with Samfylkingin but others matching the Left Greens. Pro-EU.

The Pirates have no pro or anti EU stance, except that people should get to vote on it. They're very much not happy with our current government's promise breaking and lawbreaking on this front. But the membership is mixed on how they'd actually vote - they just want to get a vote.

I think the Pirates would form a great part of any potential leftist coalition. They have a lot of policy blind spots where they try to avoid taking stances, but they're very hardcore on certain issues that really need an advocate.