Hated by the Left , Orban thrives
For a small ex-Soviet satellite, Hungary has punched above its weight in attracting international attention in recent times. So much so that the defeat in the 3 April elections of its conservative prime minister for 16 years, Viktor Orbán, would have been celebrated loudly in woke European and broader Guardianista circles, for a while swamping the news from Ukraine. Happily this was not to be.
Especially since Donald Trump faded from view, Orbán has been the favourite hate-figure for Europe’s left-liberal establishment. His original sin was to denounce Angela Merkel’s decision to invite over a million Third World (mostly non-refugee) migrants into the EU in 2015 and her pressure to share the arrivals around the 28 member-states. Orbán, an admirer of Australia’s robust border security, responded by building a security fence on Hungary’s southern border, a measure the EU supported in other cases (Greece-Turkey, Spain-Morocco), but condemned in this instance – because it was a poke in the eye to Saint Angela. The EU was about building bridges not walls, the Brussels bien pensants piously intoned.
Orbán compounded the Euro-sin of being pro-strong borders by saying he had no interest in repeating western Europe’s experience of mass Third World immigration. He said, ‘Hungary has the right—and every nation has the right—to say that it does not want its country to change.’ France, Britain and Germany were entitled to admit millions of Third World immigrants. But ‘we have a duty to look at where this has taken them.’ The EU thought its worst news ever was Brexit until Orbán made it clear he wanted to stay in – on a mission to stop it from becoming a superstate with the member-states reduced to provinces.
Read the article by Mark Higgie in The Spectator.