One of the most exciting movements in contemporary politics is the Pirate party. It's attracting huge support across Europe and around the world, and not just because it represents protest. It points to a new kind of politics – one that anyone involved in policy needs to respond to.

The first Pirate party was founded in Sweden on New Year's Day 2006 by Rick Falkvinge. But its precursor was a thinktank called Piratbyrån, or Piracy Bureau, which was created in 2003 and inspired the beginnings of the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Within six months of Piratbyrån's launch, sister parties were springing up around the world. From Argentina to Venezuela, there are now more than 65 national pirate parties.

They all have three common policies: in addition to reforming copyright and patent law, they propose increased government and corporate transparency and accountability, and greater protections for personal privacy. Underlying this is the importance of a free and open internet.

In an age of austerity, this might seem somewhat marginal until you consider the issues that have dominated the news recently – privacy and media practices; corporate power and its influence on policymakers; a lack of regulation in financial services; and the extradition of British citizens accused of hacking and copyright theft.

In May, the British courts ordered that The Pirate Bay should be blocked by internet service providers. As a direct result and in a matter of weeks, the UK Pirate Party's website has become incredibly popular. It is currently the 425th most popular website in the UK (according to research by Alexa.com) – an increase 1,390% in just three months. This makes it many times more popular than the websites of the mainstream political parties:

• Labour Party – 6,555th

• Conservative Party – 16,999th

• UKIP – 19,638th

• Liberal Democrats – 44,557th

Whatever your views on copying and/or sharing, something significant is going on here. Though disillusion and disengagement from traditional politics is certainly part of it, the pirate parties are talking to audiences largely neglected by mainstream parties – a point made by Juli Zeh in a recent Guardian article – and the possibility of a new kind of politics, one where parties enable people to be part of the process of creating policy collectively.

In Germany, Sweden and other countries, pirate parties are winning considerable electoral support. Whether or not the same happens here or whether the pirate party phenomenon persists, anyone involved in policy – locally or nationally, in the public sector, a charity or a think tank – needs to respond by recognising that developing policy without the direct participation of the public is what created the current crisis in democracy.

In our own project, we're just staring a project to draft a 'manifesto' for public and practitioner involvement in policy. In the spirit of pirate politics, we want anyone to be able to contribute thoughts and proposals for this, so do get involved via our website.

If we're complacent – if collectively we don't recognise what's going on and find ways to respond to voters' anger – we should note that the second most popular UK political party website belongs to the BNP.

Michael Harris is chief executive and founder of Guerilla Policy

This article is published by Guardian Professional. Join the Guardian Public Leaders Network free to receive regular emails on the issues at the top of the professional agenda.