Rainbow George Weiss - Politics

Politics

Founding his own political party, the "Vote For Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket" he previously stood in the 2001 General Election for the Belfast East constituency where he won a total of 71 votes (0.2% of those cast). Despite this, Weiss has spent considerable time and money organising an unofficial postal referendum to ask the people of Belfast whether they would like the city to be renamed "Best City", a name inspired by the late Northern Ireland football player George Best. With the celebrity endorsement of former professional snooker player Alex Higgins, the referendum took place in 2006 at an estimated cost (to Weiss himself) of £100,000. Only 2000 votes were returned, which means George effectively paid £50 for each vote he got.

Weiss was a candidate at the Brent East by-election standing for the www.xat.org party in 2003, won by Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather, where he came bottom of a list of 16 candidates with just eleven votes. While this vote was considerably low. lower votes had previously been registered, for example in the 1988 by-election in Kensington a candidate had polled just five votes. The Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket election record was also "surpassed" at the 2005 General election when British model Catherine Taylor-Dawson stood for the party in Cardiff North and achieved a single vote, though not from Taylor-Dawson herself, who wasn't eligible to vote in that constituency. Weiss himself set a new election record by simultaneously standing in 12 constituencies, beating Tom Keen of the Campaign for a More Prosperous Britain's previous record of 10.

He stood in all four Belfast constituencies during the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election. Standing for his Make Politicians History Party, he came third last in South Belfast and last in the three other constituencies with a total of 221 first preference votes. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams gave him a sixth preference vote in West Belfast.