Brendan Molloy from PPAU and Loz Kaye from PPUK, who have both led their Parties for several years, are stepping down.

Fresh from campaigning as the Pirate Party candidate for the Manchester Central constituency in last week’s UK General Election, Loz has decided to “step down to spend more time with my family” and “balance my life better.”

This does not mean that Loz will be lost to Pirate politics. In a statement on PPUK’s website Loz says: “I believe the best I can do for the ideas we believe in is by concentrating in what and where I do best. So that is focusing on Manchester where I think we have made our politics concrete.”

“This has been an extraordinary period in my life and a huge thank you to everyone who let me lead the fight for civil liberties, a crowd sourced politics and a society where everyone can get a fair share. There’s been much discussion about the future of the movement. We’ve done a lot to define it. But now it’s time for others to shape it.”

Brendan joined the PPAU as a founding member in 2008 to fight the Labor Government’s internet censorship proposals and has continued that fight against the Liberal Government’s attacks on civil liberties, particularly in relation to data retention. He has been a strong advocate for the reform of copyright and patents legislation and has campaigned on the need for close public scrutiny of trade agreements and treaties, particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Brendan was also the lead Senate candidate in NSW for the Pirate Party in the 2013 federal election.

Like Loz, Brendan has recognised the need to take a break “to recover from the very physical and emotional toll that day-to-day political work has on a person.”

Both Loz and Brendan have taken their respective Parties a long way, but both also recognise that there is still much work to be done.

“Going forward,” Brendan says, “there are still unresolved challenges for the Party. We still need to finish developing our technical infrastructure. We need to build a stronger and more obvious narrative, and a strong volunteer engagement strategy.”

The latter, Brendan suggests (echoing Loz’s remarks about maintaining a healthy life-balance), is of particular importance. Without more volunteers “we cannot sustain this level of activity… Ideally, we should never be in a situation where anybody in this party is required to work as hard as I have over the last few years—the work needs to be better spread around and that requires more hands on deck.”

Neither has taken his decision to step-down lightly. Both will be missed. But both have left a legacy. As Loz himself says, “We’ve done a lot to define it [the Pirate movement]. But now it’s time for others to shape it.”

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Full text of Loz Kaye’s statement: https://pirateparty.org.uk/blogs/loz-kaye/moving
Full text of Brendan Molloy’s statement: http://pirateparty.org.au/2015/05/11/time-for-a-break/

Featured image: Composite Pirate Times CC BY-NC-SA from work by Walk the Piracy Plank and ajhals

About Andrew McCallum

Andrew McCallum lives and works in Southern Scotland. By day he runs a community-led social enterprise company in a small area of multiple deprivation on the southside of Edinburgh, providing a range of care and support services to disadvantaged people, and by night he scribbles poetry while consuming vast quantities of caffeine and nicotine. He is a member of Pirate Party UK and a bit of an anarchist.

 

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Brendan Molloy from PPAU and Loz Kaye from PPUK, who have both led their Parties for several years, are stepping down. Fresh from campaigning as the Pirate Party candidate for…