Free Party (UK)

Last updated November 14, 2019

J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, whose image was the party logo

The Free Party was a minor political party in the United Kingdom. They were founded to promote the free party scene during the 2001 general election. They stood candidates for the three Parliamentary seats within the city of Brighton and Hove, under names associated with the Church of the SubGenius. They proposed to select their policies from a wheel of fortune.

A political party is an organized group of people who have the same ideology, or who otherwise have the same political positions, and who field candidates for elections, in an attempt to get them elected and thereby implement the party's agenda.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country located off the northwestern coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom's 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi) were home to an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

A free party is a party "free" from the restrictions of the legal club scene, similar to the free festival movement. It typically involves a sound system playing electronic dance music from late at night until the time when the organisers decide to go home. A free party can be composed of just one system or of many and if the party becomes a festival, it becomes a teknival. The parties can be thought of as autonomous zones where all the people present create and enforce the rules. This typically means that drugs are readily available and noise levels are usually illegally high. The word free in this context is used both to describe the entry fee and the lack of restrictions and law enforcement.

Bob Dobbs

In the 1997 general election, a candidate stood for election in Brighton, Pavilion, using the description Church of the SubGenius, and the name of the "church" leader, J. R. "Bob" Dobbs. This was the election when the Labour Party was swept into power, winning the election in Brighton and making Tony Blair prime minister. The Labour government introduced the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, legislation requiring the registration of political parties, and at the 2001 election, the Free Party was registered with the Electoral Commission, the registered party symbol chosen being an image of Dobbs' face.

The 1997 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 1 May 1997, five years after the previous general election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. Under the leadership of Tony Blair, the Labour Party ended its eighteen-year spell in opposition and won the general election with a landslide victory, winning 418 seats, a landslide majority of 179 seats, the most seats the party has ever held to date, and the highest proportion of seats held by any party in the post-war period. For the first time since 1931, the outgoing government lost more than half its parliamentary seats in an election, and over 100 sitting Conservative MPs lost their seats.

Church of the SubGenius Parody religion created in the US in the 1970s

The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion that satirizes better-known belief systems. It teaches a complex philosophy that focuses on J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, purportedly a salesman from the 1950s, who is revered as a prophet by the Church. SubGenius leaders have developed detailed narratives about Dobbs and his relationship to various gods and conspiracies. Their central deity, Jehovah 1, is accompanied by other gods drawn from ancient myth and popular fiction. SubGenius literature describes a grand conspiracy that seeks to brainwash the world and oppress Dobbs' followers. In its narratives, the Church presents a blend of cultural references in an elaborate remix of the sources.

J. R. "Bob" Dobbs mythological founder of the Church of the Subgenius

J. R. "Bob" Dobbs is the figurehead of the Church of the SubGenius. His image is derived from a piece of 1950s clip art. According to SubGenius dogma, "Bob" was a drilling equipment salesman who, in 1953, saw a vision of the god JHVH-1 on a television set he had built. The vision inspired him to write the "PreScriptures" and found the Church. The theology holds that "Bob" is the greatest salesman who ever lived, and has cheated death a number of times. He is also revered for his great follies and believed to be a savior of "Slack". He was assassinated in San Francisco in 1984, though the Church claims that he has come back from the dead several times since then.

At the 2001 election, the party stood candidates in all the local constituencies, with Bob Dobbs achieving 1 per cent of the total votes for the Pavilion seat, beating the UK Independence Party into seventh place. This was not enough, however, to secure the return of the candidates' £500 deposits.

The UK Independence Party is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The leadership is presently vacant following the resignation of Richard Braine. It currently has one Assembly Member (AM) in the National Assembly for Wales and one London Assembly member. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Members of Parliament and was the largest UK party in the European Parliament.

After the 2001 election, the party failed to submit the required returns of electoral expenses, and the party was deregistered in March 2002.^[1]

At the following election, two candidates named Dobbs were again on the ballot, but without the party name their votes dropped dramatically.

Elections contested by Free Party and allies

Date of election	Candidate name	Constituency	Party	Votes	%
1997 general election	Bob Dobbs	Brighton, Pavilion	Church of the SubGenius	125	0.3
2001 general election	Bob Dobbs	Brighton, Pavilion	Free Party	409	1.0
2001 general election	Dave Dobbs	Brighton, Kemptown	Free Party	227	0.6
2001 general election	Simon Dobbshead	Hove	Free Party	196	0.5
2005 general election	Gene Dobbs	Brighton, Kemptown	none	47	0.1
2005 general election	Bob Dobbs	Hove	none	95	0.2

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References

↑ "Renamed or Deregistered Parties" (PDF). Electoral Commission. Retrieved 12 June 2011.

External links

Party website(dead link)
Urban 75 on Election 2001

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[1] "Renamed or Deregistered Parties" (PDF). Electoral Commission. Retrieved 12 June 2011.