“Just how low can they go?"
The Brexit-loving Express showed where its loyalties lie this week, getting wound up about the resignation of two far-right politicians in Hungary.
Last weekend, Katalin Novak, Hungary’s President, dramatically resigned amid controversy over her pardoning of a man convicted in a child sexual abuse case. Novak is a key ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, leader of the far-right nationalist Fidesz Party. Hungary’s first female president has been an outspoken advocate of traditional family values and the protection of children.
Judit Varga, the former justice minister who was expected to lead the ruling party’s list for the European Parliament election this June, also announced she was resigning from the Hungarian parliament and is ‘retiring from public life.’ As justice minister, Varga was behind policies to prevent LGBTQ+ lessons in schools and as the Express keenly informed readers, “took on the EU which tried to force woke ideologies on her country.”
What is obviously a huge story in Hungary, being a rare episode of turmoil for the far-right governing party, whose leader Orban is accused of rigging the media in its favour, is of course a much lesser story in Britain.
But for the Brexit-loving Express, it was an opportunity to have a dig at the EU.
‘Ursula von de Leyen will be overjoyed as a Hungarian tragedy takes out Brexit allies,” splashed the headline.
“Normally scandals and resignations in EU countries are the sort of thing which get Brexiteers to chuckle and reflect on how fortunate we are to be out of the stinking swamp of Brussels politics. But what has unfolded in Hungary really hurts…there is no other way to put it,” writes political editor David Maddox.
“Express readers may wonder why should we care about the resignation of two politicians they have not heard of in a middling European country now we are out,” Maddox continued, adding:
“It is a fair question, but the answer is we should care a lot because of the European Parliament election and the likelihood now that the ultra-federalist, Brexit Britain haters of Guy Verhofstadt and Ursula von der Leyen will win.”
Maddox continues that Novak and Varga were ‘superstars of the new conservative right across Europe,’ and were ‘key elements of the battle against the creeping power of Brussels, the fight to preserve nation state and democracy, and the war on woke.’
The article was grilled online.
“The BrexSh1tPress are far more fans of the misdemeanours and crimes of this government, than many of the people in Hungary, with Hungarians appalled by the crimes and coverups that the BrexSh1tPress seem to love,” was one comment.
“Their [Novak and Vaga} alleged involvement in the appalling scandal has not diminished their idolisation by the Brexpress it seems,” wrote pro-EU group Sheffield for Europe in a Facebook post.
“It also seems that the “newspaper” that accused the EU of “meddling” in our affairs is quite happy to meddle in the affairs of the EU they so hate and seek to comment on the European Parliamentary elections that UK voters have been disenfranchised from.
“Just how low can they go,” the group asked.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
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