While the British decided that what the European Parliament really needed was a couple of racists, the Swedish decided to return a pair of pirates. Though let's put this news into context. Robert Kilroy Silk has been an MEP for the last five years. So whatever happened in this election, I think its fair to say the Euro chamber has survived worse.
But yes, capitalising on opposition among some web users (especially younger web users) in Sweden to the Stockholm court's decision to fine and imprison the founders and funder of controversial BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay, the so called Pirate Party took 7.1% of the overall Swedish vote in last week's big European count, meaning the pro-file-sharing body will get at least one and maybe two seats in the European Parliament (Sweden is about to get two more seats overall, and it's thought one of those may well go to the Pirates).
It is pretty big news, because the party only launched in 2006 and, as an organisation primarily concerned with one issue - internet rights - few in the Swedish media expected them to gain any real political power; or at least that was the viewpoint before The Pirate Bay trial.
Although the Pirate Party is not officially linked to the BitTorrent tracker, they did capitalise on the Swedish-based online community who supported the so called Pirate Bay four, who were, of course, ordered to pay the record companies millions in damages and sentenced to a year in jail for enabling mass copyright infringement via their BitTorrent-focused search engine (not that they've paid a penny or served any jail time).
Allegations that the judge who ruled on the case was biased, with well known sympathies for and personal friendships within the pro-copyright lobby, have only aided the Pirate Party in their efforts to rally the usually anonymous online blogging community into making a more tangible stand against attempts to enforce the content industries' copyrights online, and over concerns moves by government and major corporations in Sweden threaten individual's online privacy rights.
Whether having one maybe two seats in the European Parliament will really strengthen the lobbying power of the Pirate Party in their bid to relax copyright rules and protect privacy rights, at home or at a European level, isn't clear, though in PR terms in Sweden it provides quite a boost, and gives the organisation a lot more legitimacy. The result also possibly shows just how disenfranchised young Swedes are with mainstream politics, and/or what can be achieved with some good web-centric electioneering.
Asked about the result, Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak: "We've felt the wind blow in our sails. We've seen the polls prior to the election. But to stand here, today, and see the figures coming up on that screen... What do you want me to say? I'll say anything. Together, we have today changed the landscape of European politics. No matter how this night ends, we have changed it. This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood it's time to make a difference. The older politicians have taken apart young peoples' lifestyle, bit by bit. We do not accept the authorities' mass-surveillance"
There were reports that a version of the Pirate Party in Germany might also win a seat, though that is not the case. According to the latest report on TorrentFreak the anti-copyright, pro-privacy group there got 1% of the votes overall, which isn't enough to win them a seat in the European chamber. However, the Party's lead candidate Andreas Popp says their share of the vote was, in itself, an achievement. Popp told the website: "This was the first time we ran for the European elections. And although many voters have hardly known us, we got a great result. This shows that many citizens identify themselves with our goals. I want to thank all people who supported us, we could not have done that without them. We have fulfilled our minimal goal of 0.5%. Now we can start up for real!"