The Pirate Party is the shape of things to come

The Angry Brigade are real winners from the Mandybill

Comment A clear winner is emerging from the Digital Economy Bill - and it's the UK Pirate Party. The penny only really dropped for me yesterday, after the Open Rights Group's big demonstration at Westminster.

"What was all that about, Andrew?" someone asked me in the pub afterwards. He'd been at the Commons for a meeting, and walked past the demo too. The confusion was understandable: the ORG's clever wheeze of blank placards and a silent protest meant anyone walking past had no idea what it was about. The glorious exceptions were a beautiful banner and a large flag from the Pirate Party. The logo is very cool, as you know.

As an exercise in communicating, the Pirates were the only success of the event. At least the logo will have got on TV, and made an impression with passers-by.

Nobody particularly likes the Bill, but as long as the sheer joy of filesharing remains an illicit one, and not part of the legitimate music market place, then Piracy will have a lustre, and the Party will be in with a chance. You may find them childish, ignorant and selfish - as I do - but they have a simple message that eludes other digital campaigners. But I think the Pirates may flourish for a few other reasons. I'll try and explain what they are.

Back in 1992, as the country came blinking into democracy. Polish voters had the luxury of not just one but two Beer Parties. There was a split, you see, into Dark and Light Beer factions. That's the beauty of party democracy: it's like web standards - you can't get enough of them.

Over here, we have an atrophied political system. At least the pirates have organised their own party - or at any rate, pinched the idea from someone else and registered the name first - and are willing to take their ideas to a real ballot box, rather than engaging in backdoor lobbying, or creeping their way up the party hierarchy via career advancement. The traditional parties are unable to see beyond focus groups, and it leaves voters with no real choices on the big issues of the day - such as Europe or the environment. Instead, we have a Tweedledum / Tweedledee distinction between tiny nuances of style, rather than substance.

Two cheers for that. The internet has seen the liberation of what Bernard Levin christened the "Single Issue Fanatic", or SIF. It doesn't matter what the issue is, and it may even be fictional, but if you can pursue it relentlessly, you'll get traction. The Pirate Party captures a popular "cause" - P2P still isn't legal, and the Pirates declared enemy - record companies and Hollywood - is easily identifiable. SIFs they certainly are. Other policies are conspicuous by their absence. Foreign relations? Education? Defence? Not a word. But I'd like to think that in a Pirate-governed UK, even civilian aircraft would be required to put the slain body of a copyright holder to the nose.

The Pirate Party also offers clear benefits over donating to the Open Rights Group, which is probably the organisation with most to lose from a successful Pirate tilt. (It strengthens the hardliners in the music business, obviously, at the expense of the industry as a whole.) The ORG had similar origins - it began as a meetup in Hyde Park for anti-copyright campaigners. It's another coalition of people with nothing in common except a heartfelt antipathy towards copyright.

The ORG has run a lacklustre and at times spectacularly incompetent "campaign" against the Digital Economy Bill. Timing the protest to coincide with Budget Day is just one example; being blindsided by the BPI's alternative Section 17 - which we first revealed back here - is another.Whereas one merely "donates" to the ORG and receives a thank you, the Party offers real "membership", and with voting rights the opportunity to influence party policy. To a SIF, it's money well spent.

So does the Manifesto fit in with any tradition? Who will it appeal to and why?