Viktor orbán

The good people of Hungary went to the polls on Sunday and voted by more than 98 per cent against accepting even a few hundred migrants, as per the European Union’s insistence. That poll result must have been gravid with nostalgia for Magyars over the age of about 35. They will remember that sort of election result being de rigueur, rather than astonishing. Indeed, in 1985 the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party succeeded in capturing 98.8 per cent of the popular vote — and even this was a bit of a disappointment, because in 1980 it had pulled in 99.3 per cent. On both occasions the ruling party was aided, of

A country votes against the EU in a referendum in which rabidly anti-immigrant sentiments are aired by senior politicians. That is Hungary, of course, where voters have just rejected — with a majority of 98 per cent, albeit it on a turnout of 44 per cent, too low to make it binding  — an EU plan for the country to house 1200 refugees. Now, perhaps, the Remain camp in Britain will stop trying to portray Britain as a nasty, xenophobic country out of step with European values and admit that actually we are really rather liberal in our attitudes towards migration. The only difference is that we had an in-out

The Spanish, in their local elections, just elected a bunch of radicals who oppose the austerity needed to keep Spain in the euro. Poland on Monday elected a Eurosceptic challenger from the conservative Law and Justice party. And leaks from the Euro-summit suggested that David Cameron will respond to this rare combination of crisis and opportunity by demanding… well, not much in the way of reforms and concessions. Admittedly these leaks may be feints to mislead all sides about London’s negotiating strategy. It’s early days. Nor is Poland yet a reliable ally for Britain in such negotiations: its government will be divided between a Eurosceptic president and a pro-Brussels administration