Hungary’s Lesson for Tories

The fall of Viktor Orbán shows how right-wing populism can provoke a centre-right, rule-of-law backlash from voters. Former Conservative Councillor Gio Spinella explains what it means for the Tories.

Rarely do elections in European nations get as much international attention as last Sunday’s elections in Hungary. After all there have been general elections in Denmark and Slovenia and outside of the small if vocal cadre of political analysts and psephologists, the general public will hardly care that in Slovenia Robert Golob now has to govern in coalition with the parties of the left, or that Denmark’s Mette Fredriksen has lost her own majority but is likely to stay in office as leader of a larger coalition.

But Hungary matters

It matters because its incumbent government and leader, Viktor Orbán, governed as an “illiberal” Christian nationalist, invoking a series of campaign points such as attachment to national identity, strong social conservativism, reference to the values of the majority Catholic religion and hostility to immigration. Many of these positions resonate with right-wingers and conservatives across the West.

It matters because Orbán used his time in office and – allegedly

– government funds, to build a network of political think tanks, organisations and ties with likeminded politicians and groupings across the West, not least with the Heritage Foundation in the US and with Nigel Farage in his many political guises in the UK.

It matters because Orbán’s party embraced the culture wars and in so, ended up creating the ideological premises for an ever-closer relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Orbán’s government towards the end had become a de-facto fifth columnist for Russia in both NATO and the EU, undermining both the West’s efforts to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion and the EU’s overall attempts to start forging an autonomous defence strategy, one no longer dependant on an increasingly unreliable USA. Orbán was also a main, though by no means exclusive, conduit between MAGA and Russia.

Small l, Big L

In doing all of this, Orban’s rejection of social liberalism morphed into a rejection of classical economic and constitutional liberalism: the liberalism of individual rights, personal freedoms, not least freedom of speech, the liberalism of free markets and the separation of powers. Orbán’s rejection of liberalism, and his belief – whether sincere or otherwise – that he was acting in the superior interests of the Hungarian people, interests that superseded any constitutional formalism, led him to dismantle the safeguards that a successful modern democratic state needs to function. Safeguards such as an independent judiciary, a free and independent press, institutions that must stand separate from transitory political contexts, to protect the weak from the powerful, the citizen from the state and the honest from the dishonest.

It was in doing all this that Orban ultimately planted the seeds of his own defeat. With unchecked institutional power, his Fidesz party stopped becoming a servant of its citizens but instead a predatory organisation, trying to loot and drain the resources of the Hungarian state to the benefit of Orbán’s cronies and in a state of impunity. This led to Orbán’s fall.

Kataline Novak, President of the Hungarian Republic, its head of state and an Orbán crony, pardoned another Orbán courtier, Endre Konya, who had been convicted for trying to cover-up a paedophilia scandal. Even in tightly controlled Hungary, this scandal reached the general public and provoked an outcry which led to Peter Magyar leaving Fidez, joining Tisza, a minor conservative party, and leading it to triumph on the 12^th of April, on the back of public fury, anti-Russian nationalism, a strong desire to re-engage fully with the EU and end to the Orbán corruption and impunity.

Right Reaction

What some commentators however might miss in the collapse of the Orban autocracy is that Tisza is a part of the centre right. It draws on many of the same political and ideological markers that formed Orbán’s platform, not least in its anti-immigration and socially moderate positions.

So, although Tisza’s victory can be described as a liberal victory, it is so in a classical liberal sense, of a restoration of that rule of law that has always been at the heart of any Conservative approach to government.

Inevitably in politics, once you take in the facts, one of the first questions is “how does this relate to me?” – and in the UK context, how does this relate to the battle between the Conservative Party and Reform. After all, the Hungarian election was a battle between two right-wing parties, a battle made possible because the parties of the left chose to step to one side and clear out the playing field to enable the defeat of the greater threat.

There are some threads to the Hungarian elections that can be studied and looked at in the UK.

For one thing, whereas the Hungarian electorate did not necessarily reject overall centre-right values, they did reject how these political positions were used to lead them to places – institutionally and administratively – that are incompatible with the basic expectations all citizens have with regards to government and state institutions.

The Hungarian people wanted genuine law and order, meaning a law that will be applied properly to everyone – with no exceptions. One can also extrapolate that they demanded a state that was run with no regards to one’s personal politics or proximity to the powerful. Once again, we come back to the rule of law.

Conserving Liberalism

It has been for decades the position of a certain Left that the modern institutions, the separation of powers and the existence of constitutional guardrails and independent watchdogs – not least a free and diverse press – exist only to thwart the will of the people, that they are constraints that needs to be removed to finally achieve genuine justice for all.

Worryingly this attitude over the last few years has migrated to the Right. The idea that our institutional framework has been captured by hostile elites, inimical to our nation, to the “real people” and that the entire system needs to be not so much reformed as destroyed is not a Conservative position but rather one of the radical reactionary right, that finds its natural home in the ranks of Reform, although unfortunately with echoes in the rhetoric of some Conservatives.

Frustration with say a court ruling or a BBC news report should not be used as an excuse to do away with the entire judicial system or the public news service. An unsatisfactory court ruling requires all relevant parties to not attack the judiciary or a particular individual judge but review the underlying legislation to see where the problem points are and then examine and address within a clear and transparent framework. The idea that mistakes made – by any human institution – should be used to invalidate that very institution is at the heart of the populist challenge, be it from the right and from the left.

Populists, such as Reform, like to portray modern public governance as a battle between elites and “real” people. As the elites have permeated the institutions, those very institutions are corrupt and beyond saving and must be destroyed, to allow “real people” to flourish, real people in this case usually meaning people who agree with everything the populists say and think.

These positions find far too many sympathies in the Conservative party as well. But as the Orbán experiment has shown, this path leads to corruption, impunity and ultimately, to an emphatic rejection by the voters.

Remember Stability?

The rule of law is much like fresh air or clean water: you don’t think of it until it goes missing.

Orbán was the figurehead of a populist movement that moved against a “liberal” order which at its core is really much more Conservative that people realise. The modern state, warts and all, has been a result of Conservative governments that have stretched over decades, and this legacy and tradition are not something to be spurned but something to be embraced. The rage-baiting of the alt-right Reform cannot be justification for a wanton destruction of institutions and legal frameworks that exist – at their best – to protect us from each other, from large corporations that easily lose sight of the individual and from a state that can be as destructive.

Reform offers only chaos and its reference points in international politics and government are the corrupt and deposed Orbán and the increasingly irrational Trump. In the face of this chaos, the Conservatives must reclaim their role as guarantors of order and stability – yes, reformist, as much of our modern government requires it – but by no means “revolutionary” or destructive.

Photo Credits:

• Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

• Hungarian Presidential Press and Information Office

• Révész Gábor