Old parties helpless against Pirates

The Pirate Party in Germany has been accused of not distancing itself properly from right-wing ideologies. Only recently Martin Delius, leader of the Pirate faction in the Berlin city-state government, compared the meteoric rise of his party with that of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazis). This may give the established parties serious ammunition against the Pirates, writes the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, but they should concentrate on keeping the discussion objective: "The party is wading through a 'brown [Nazi] swamp', the opponents complain, adding that it doesn't know how to deal with the 'far-right' and can't explain its ties to right-wing extremism. Even if the Berlin Pirate Martin Delius goes through the whole ritual of apologising for all the 'absolute nonsense and rubbish' he said - this won't help him or his party. It has been put in a corner where everyone knows it doesn't belong, but they also know that it's the place you put those you want to get rid of. ... You don't need tricks to get the better of the Pirate Party, the parties should be able to explain the point of laws, rules, rituals and representation. They've obviously forgotten how to do that."  

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