Orbán’s defeat threatens to halt Hungarian support of populist right

The last 16 years of Viktor Orbán’s rule have been kind to a number of British political figures – from the Tory peer David Frost to Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin and James Orr.

All benefited from largesse extended by the self-styled “illiberal democracy” established by the Hungarian leader’s ruling Fidesz party, which took a particular liking for those on the harder right of British conservatism.

But while Budapest channelled millions each year to thinktanks and individuals associated with the populist right, the overwhelming defeat of Orbán this week now threatens to bring that support across Europe to a shuddering halt.

Change looms too elsewhere, including for Hungary’s ambassador Ferenc Kumin, who has long been close to Orbán, and for media operations set up by his supporters, such as Remix News. It pumps out English-language coverage skewed towards amplifying hard-right, anti-immigration narratives of life in Britain.

Frank Furedi, the British-Hungarian sociologist and former Marxist who has emerged as a leading ideological figure for the new right, said: “We expect steps to be taken to try to deprive certain institutions of the funding they previously had and I think in some cases there will be attempts to close them down.”

MCC Brussels, the thinktank Furedi heads, has been almost entirely funded since its establishment in 2022 by a grant from Mathias Corvinus Collegium, the conservative Hungarian educational institution funded by Orbán’s government.

The Collegium’s shares in the lucrative Hungarian energy company MOL, which sources the bulk of its oil from Russia, mean that MCC Brussels and other outposts stand accused of effectively running on Russian oil.

British beneficiaries of MCC include the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation (RSLF), which was set up in the name of the late British rightwing philosopher. It has received more than half a million pounds since 2023 from MCC, amounting to more than 90% of its total funding.

The board of the RSLF, which describes itself as being at the centre of an international network of institutions and scholars dedicated to furthering the philosophical and cultural achievements of the west, includes the former minister and influential brexiter Michael Gove, as well as Orr, one of Nigel Farage’s chief advisers.

Orr, a socially conservative Cambridge University academic, is a key figure in the broader network that has evolved during Orbán’s rule, and is listed by MCC itself as one of its International guests.

Others associated with MCC include Goodwin, Reform’s losing Gorton and Denton byelection candidate and one of the Hungarian organisation’s “visiting fellows”. Such figures are paid between €5,000 and €10,000 (£4,350 and £8,700) per month, according to leaked documents obtained by Direkt36, a Hungarian investigative outlet. Reform has denied Goodwin was paid €10,000 a month

Goodwin was the speaker at an event at MCC Scruton – a cafe and event space attached to the MCC – on the day after voters ousted Orbán. It was, by accounts from some of the 18 people who attended, a sombre affair.

Other British figures have received funding from the Danube Institute, a Budapest thinktank founded by Margaret Thatcher’s former speechwriter John O’Sullivan. Tens of thousands of pounds were provided for tasks in return for being featured “regularly or at least twice a month” in British media,” according to the Hungarian watchdog Atlatszo. Lord Frost was a visiting fellow until November last year.

On the basis of remarks this week by Hungary’s prime minister elect, Péter Magyar, those in Britain and elsewhere who have counted on support from Budapest will have to look elsewhere. “I believe the state should never have financed them in the first place,” he told a press conference, railing against the “mixing of party financing with government spending”.

Furedi said: “If we’re deprived of our existing stream of funding, then we’ll just have to go out with a cap and raise money and find new ways of operating that are more economical, maybe have a leaner organisation. People are going to want to maintain their work and not just go up to fight.” He insisted his organisation always had “total autonomy”.

Such funding might come from corporate sources, or even further afield.

Marietta van der Tol, an assistant research professor at Cambridge and close observer of Hungary in recent times, said: “There is the possibility that those thinktanks and others beyond Hungary could look to the US. Its new national security strategy talked about cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.

“It’s not really clear yet who Péter Magyar is or what he wants. He’s a conservative who has come from Fidesz but he has talked about the transformation of the institutions, the economy, the media. Hungarians want regime change. Either way, those who have benefited from Orbán’s support are clearly worried.”