Hungary: the hypocrisy of Europe's elites
News & Social Media / Post
Yet again, Europe's elites show their contempt for democracy
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian PM, has just won a fourth term, apparently by a landslide. In 2010, Orban won 52 percent of the vote and got 68 percent of the seats. He’s just won 54 percent of the vote and got 68 percent of the seats. Even allowing for some malpractice, this means the majority of Hungarians agree with his vision for Hungary.
This sees Tim Garton Ash in The Guardian openly calling on the EU to penalise Hungary as the “enemy within”, for the government its people elected. “Orbán’s victory in Hungary adds to the darkness engulfing Europe” he shrieks. He asserts that Orbán won by “telling Hungarians that he would keep them out of this war – and that their heating bills would stay low due to his sweet gas deals with Putin”.
Gosh, just imagine that. A PM who doesn’t drag his country into every war and wants to ensure his own people can heat their homes. What a bastard!
This sees the Euro luvvies weeping and baying for the triggering of Rule of Law mechanism against Hungary. “High time to ensure that Orban’s government is held to account for its erosion of EU values”. The voters have stepped out of line once more. Orban won on a platform that was conservative, nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-traditional family, and firmly against military intervention in Ukraine. This cannot go unpunished!
In his victory speech, the Orban listed the “opponents” he had defeated. They included the international media, Brussels bureaucrats and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has criticised him fiercely for his opposition to the weapon supplies and further sanctions. After Putin, that makes him public enemy number one among European elites. All the people who’ve been telling us that Ukraine is a battle for democracy, national sovereignty and the “right to choose” are having a Brexit style meltdown.
What’s bizarre about this is that these are the same people courting Ukrainian membership of the EU, as though Ukraine was some kind of liberal democracy. Ukraine has gone further than Hungary on “anti LGBT” measures, absorbed neo-Nazis into it security apparatus, and not by any measure is it less corrupt than Hungary. Were Ukraine a member of the EU it would likely be subject to the same Rule of Law sanctions – and subject to the same “economic reforms” as Greece.
They claim (with a straight face) that Orban exploited a rigged political system, such as gerrymandered constituencies and overwhelming media dominance. Self-awareness has never been their strong point. But the final straw for the progressive left, though, is that Orban refuses to back the West’s proxy war on Russia.
There is nothing new about Orban’s cool-headed view of the EU. He has opposed the insidious march of the Western NGOcracy in Eastern Europe. He knows that Zelensky is their puppet, and doesn’t see why Hungarians should sacrifice their living standards in order to do their bidding. As soon as they’re done with Zelensky they’ll set about dismantling Ukrainian sovereignty and self-determination just as they’re attempting to do to Poland and Hungary.
When they say Orban’s victory is a “dark day for democracy”, they mean it’s a dark day for their version of democracy – which means submitting to their “liberal” values whether you want them or not. That also means adopting disastrous EU climate policies which have sent home heating bills into the stratosphere. Orban’s greatest crime is to put his own people first. He is unashamed about securing Hungary’s borders.
But Orban’s stance on immigration also falls foul of the European elite consensus. As Central and Western Europe have flung open their borders, they have invited wave after wave of crime and terrorism, while making natives second class citizens in their own countries. That’s the ultimate outcome of identity politics. Why should any nation consent to its own eradication? That Orban won’t is what makes him so intolerable.
That Russian forces have committed war crimes in occupied Ukraine could be considered a game changer, to a point where it really is time to take sides, but why should a small country like Hungary subject itself to economic harms while Germany and others are still, in effect, financing Putin’s war by the purchase of Russia gas? The EU is not in a position to be wagging the finger at Orban. In any case, when it comes to war crimes, Ukraine’s hands are also blooded. For some reason it's news to Western pundits that war isn’t very nice.
Meanwhile, NATO is just itching to get further involved in the war, while our own media doubles down on the the warmongering. They seem not to care if further escalation will plunge all of Europe into economic hardship or risk wider conflict. Hungary seems to understand the stakes. They have skin in the game while we rattle sabres from the side-lines.
In this we should recall that Ukraine is not a NATO member – and for a very good reason, and we are not obliged to wreck our own living standards for a disputed scrap of border land on the far fringes of the continent. The national interest is for this war to end. If we wish to stop war crimes then we need to stop the war. Prolonging it will only see more of the same. We should not be blackmailed and guilt-tripped into feeding more weapons into the meat grinder. How about, just for once, we put our own interests first?
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