Viktor Orbán is back – how far-right influence can outlive electoral setback

“I’m back,” Viktor Orbán announced on X on September 12, as he returned to political life after a long summer break.

Hungary’s former prime minister wasted little time making his intentions clear. At the annual Kötcse gathering of Fidesz politicians and allies, he delivered what was described as a “fiery speech,” declaring the “grace period for the neo-communists is over,” and that his party was ready to fight. He accused Péter Magyar’s government of overseeing the “recolonisation” of Hungary and claimed Brussels, rather than Hungarian national interests, was driving the country’s direction.

Orbán may have lost power, but he has no intention of disappearing from politics.

And his comeback matters well beyond Hungary.

Voters decisively rejected him at April’s parliamentary election, ending his 16-year tenure and handing Magyar’s Tisza party a two-thirds majority. But the political networks, ideas and relationships cultivated during those years did not disappear with him.

Reform could face a similar situation. Even if it loses an election, that wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of its political influence. Like UKIP before it, Reform could succeed in pulling the mainstream parties towards its positions on issues such as immigration, net zero and taxation, achieving some of its political goals without holding a parliamentary majority.

It also has assets that can survive an electoral setback: a high-profile leadership, extensive media exposure, substantial financial backing and an established institutional presence. With elected representatives across local councils, the London Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd, Reform is already building a political infrastructure that extends beyond any single election. Its reported £72 million in combined donations from billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo could further help it maintain that infrastructure and its campaigning networks.

In other words, electoral defeat would not necessarily amount to political disappearance. Orbán’s experience shows how a movement can retain influence through networks, ideas, institutions and sympathetic media even after losing power. That is an important part of understanding what Reform’s long-term impact could look like.

Orbánism has travelled

For years, Orbán presented Hungary as a blueprint for what he called an “illiberal” state, built around national sovereignty, traditional family values and hostility towards perceived foreign interference.

His government was criticised by opponents at home and abroad for taking Hungary in an authoritarian direction, but its influence was never confined to Hungary.

Orbán cultivated relationships with politicians, intellectuals, think tanks and media organisations across Europe and the US, and government-backed Hungarian institutions became part of an international conservative network, providing platforms, funding and opportunities for political collaboration.

Hungary became a reference point for politicians seeking to challenge liberal institutions, strengthen national sovereignty and oppose what they portrayed as the influence of Brussels and international organisations.

That network now stretches across Europe, and into Britain’s populist right.

The Reform-Orbán connection

A DeSmog investigation published in April mapped links between Reform figures and Orbán-linked organisations. It found that senior Reform figures had appeared on Orbán-backed platforms and that organisations associated with Reform figures had received funding from institutions connected to the Hungarian government.

One prominent link is James Orr, Reform’s head of policy until his recent resignation following an undercover investigation into Reform’s handling of foreign donations.

Orr is a trustee of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, whose UK board includes figures such as Michael Gove. The foundation has been identified as a recipient of Hungarian-linked funding, with investigations reporting substantial funding from the Orbán-linked Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC).

Orr is also UK chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, which organises National Conservatism conferences, which are also sponsored and coordinated by the Brussels arm of the MCC. 

NatCon has provided a meeting place for politicians and intellectuals sympathetic to Orbán’s brand of national conservatism.

At its 2024 conference in Brussels, Orbán was the headline political figure, while Orr and Nigel Farage were also on the programme. Suella Braverman, who defected to Farage’s party in January, also spoke at the event. As has Matthew Goodwin, GB News presenter who stood as Reform UK’s candidate for the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election. In an interview with Hungary Today earlier this year, Goodwin praised the Orbán model, saying that “Britain can learn from countries like Hungary.”

These connections matter because Orbán’s influence has never depended solely on formal political alliances. Conferences, think tanks, intellectual networks and cultural organisations have helped create a common political narrative and goal across borders.

Patriots for Europe – the far-right gains ground

The pattern is visible across Europe.

Orbán has openly cultivated relations with Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In February 2025, shortly before Germany’s federal election, he met AfD co-leader Alice Weidel and declared that Berlin had been a “city of walls” and that it was time to tear down another one.

The AfD subsequently achieved a landmark result in Saxony-Anhalt’s state election on September 6, winning around 44% of the vote.

In the Czech Republic, billionaire populist Andrej Babiš’s ANO won just under 35% of the vote in the 2025 parliamentary election, taking 80 of the 200 seats. Babiš, who was prime minister from 2017 to 2021, is a founding member of Patriots for Europe, the right-wing populist European Parliament group established by Orbán in 2024.

Following Orban’s election loss in April, the Patriots declared renewed vigour.

“The Patriots Group is more united than before and determined to intensify its efforts, committing to continue and strengthen the political struggle for sovereignty, prosperity, and freedom for all European nations,” they said in a statement.

The group also includes Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), France’s National Rally, Portugal’s Chega and other nationalist parties. With 84 of the European Parliament’s 720 seats, it is the chamber’s third-largest political group. Its chairman is Jordan Bardella, National Rally president, Marine Le Pen’s party that has developed particularly close political ties with Orbán, sharing positions on immigration, national sovereignty and opposition to the EU establishment.

Portugal has also seen the rapid rise of the far-right sovereigntist party, Chega. In the 2025 snap election, the party won 60 seats and 22.8% of the vote, becoming the second-largest party and the largest opposition force. Chega joined Orbán’s European alliance in 2024.

Sweden offers another example of how far-right influence can outlive an electoral setback. After a desperately tight race, voters rejected the prospect of the far-right in government. The Sweden Democrats’ share of the vote fell for the first time since it began as an openly neo-Nazi party in the late 1980s, slipping from second to third place behind the conservative Moderates. It may have lost ground, but the party remains a potent political force, spending years exerting considerable influence over Sweden’s centre-right government from outside the cabinet.

Across Europe, ideas once associated with the political fringe have entered mainstream political debate, particularly around migration, crime, national sovereignty and cultural identity.

Hungary is trying to dismantle the Orbán model

Yet there is, thankfully, counter forces to Orbán’s comeback, providing a glimmer of hope.

While he is attempting to mobilise supporters against Hungary’s new government, his successor, Péter Magyar, is moving in the opposite direction.

His government has promised to reverse parts of Orbán’s legacy and has already begun dismantling parts of the political and institutional infrastructure built during Orbán’s tenure, including replacing Orbán-era appointees and pursuing anti-corruption measures. This week, the government submitted legislation to roll back Orbán-era anti-LGBTQ+ rules and intends to reverse the effective ban on same-sex adoption introduced under the previous government.

And something else to make progressives smile – Orbán’s comeback should not be mistaken for a resurgence in domestic popularity. A Europion poll conducted on September 7 – 8 put Fidesz on just 26 percent, compared with 56 percent for Péter Magyar’s Tisza party. Tisza retains an absolute majority in Budapest, where it has 56 percent support, county-seat cities with 51 percent, voters under 40 with 52 percent and, most notably, university graduates with 62 percent.

The model survives

For Britain, the Orbán story is particularly relevant because his relationship with the British populist right is hardly new.

Farage has been explicit about his admiration, having repeatedly praised Orbán, describing him, in 2018, “the strongest leader in Europe and the EU’s biggest nightmare” and “the future of Europe.”

Since then, the political networks surrounding Orbán and Britain’s populist right have become increasingly interconnected through National Conservatism, MCC-linked organisations, conferences and think tanks.

This is what can be missed when Orbán is treated simply as a Hungarian phenomenon.

His most consequential export may not be a particular policy, but a political model – sovereignty placed above international institutions, liberal elites portrayed as enemies of the people, migration and cultural change framed as existential threats, traditional family values turned into political weapons, and independent institutions presented as obstacles to popular will.

Orbán may be out of power in Hungary. The political ecosystem he helped build is not. It reaches from Budapest to Brussels and Berlin, and, through networks linking the European and British populist right, into Britain too.

Orbán might be physically back but in terms of influence, he never really went away.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch