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Comment by dantheta | Hacker News Reader

I have trouble finding any candidates I can believe in. The only benefit (for me) of the two main parties is that their stance on any issue is widely known regardless of who the individual candidate is, so I can avoid them. I like the idea of independent MPs, but it can be hard to tell ahead of time whether the candidate is a wingnut, even with fairly careful research.

I might vote, but tend to spoil the paper when I can't find a palatable candidate. I also live in an area that has had an unbroken chain of conservative MPs for the last 400 years, and will probably continue to have one for a very, very long time.

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> I have trouble finding any candidates I can believe in.

If the issue is important enough to enough people, why aren't any of them becoming candidates?

So why don't we set up a UK political party with a philosophy that cascades out of these concerns? A party that is built on Libertarian, participatory principles, committed to policy-making that is informed by in-depth technical expertise and empirical analysis, open data, and broad, open participation, where weight is given to contributions by merit, and by the expertise and experience of the participant, rather than political affiliation and deal-making pork-politics.

A party that is empowered by the development of new tools and technologies to enhance and support broad participation and effective decision making. A party that is not encumbered by the past: A party that self-consciously makes a break from historical partisan divides, and uses it's unique position to bridge left and right, and to take the best ideas, where-soever they might originate.

A party that believes that the electorate is far from stupid, and that attention to fundamentals and excellence in policy will, given time, shine through. A party that pays attention to details, and that cares about policy execution as much as short-term media coverage. A party that can effectively fight the inefficiency, corruption, cronyism and restrictive practices that plague big government and big business in equal measure. A party that can more than restore the freedom that our people and our markets have lost; but enhance it.

Freedom. Fairness. Effectiveness.

Achieved through: Transparency. Simplicity. Broad participation.

Supported by: Policy-agnostic decision-support processes & technologies.

Unfortunately in the UK we have a system where you have to post a "deposit" of quite a large amount of money in order to stand. If you don't get a certain percentage of the vote you lose this deposit. This is designed by the major parties to discourage left-of-field candidates from even appearing on the ballot.

I'll admit that this frustrating bit of ballot rigging does make it harder to vote for the throwaway candidate, but you should still vote for the one closest to your beliefs even if they're not a great match for the reasons summarised by emess in this thread.

The deposit is £500. (About $800). Candidates need to get over 5% of the votes cast.

http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/electin...

There might be some seats with very low turnouts where a decent campaign by someone wearing a monkey costume could persuade apathetic voters to turn out to vote, getting 5% of the vote and possibly winning.

The traditional protest vote is for the Monster Raving Loony Party. (Loony here is "lunatic", not the bird.) While seen as a nonsense party some of their policies have found their way into UK law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_...

A response to your post indicates that the amount isn't that large, which suggests that if there is even modest support for the ideas -- especially among even middle-income people -- it shouldn't be that hard to raise.

Sure, there'll probably be some elections in which the deposit is lost. If the approach to government is even a little bit important to more than a tiny handful of people, it doesn't seem like that should be a significant barrier.

I mean, really, I can't believe that the risk of a couple weeks wages for a single person per constituency is a substantial barrier to finding candidates who hold a view that is held as important for even a modestly substantial part of the electorate.

Historically, people who hold political views strongly have been willing to risk a lot more than that for them.

I was going to suggest you gather some like-minded people and run for office, but then I read "live in an area that has had an unbroken chain of conservative MPs for the last 400 years" and realized it doesn't work that way in your country :( .

At least in my country, several representatives are elected by region, so small parties can get representatives - I voted for the smallest represented party in my country, and I was even on the ballot myself :) and my representative got in - he can't do much though, but at least he makes his voice heard.

I wonder if a smart hacker can get himself elected - maybe Alexis Ohanian in the U.S. would care to run? (no idea about his political views though)

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