Attempts by Viktor Orbán to spread his populist philosophy across Europe have reached the UK, with an outpost of a heavily Orbán-influenced educational institute planned for London, along with significant sponsorship for groups linked to rightwing Conservatives, the Guardian has learned.
Sources have said a Hungarian cultural centre near Trafalgar Square is expected to include a branch of Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a private university sometimes likened to a seminary for young Orbán-sympathising scholars and future leaders.
MCC, which is lavishly funded by Orbán’s government – in 2020 it received more than £1.3bn in state money and assets – already operates in the UK through a deal with the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, which promotes the ideas of the late British conservative philosopher.
MCC finances scholarships for hundreds of students to attend top universities, some of whom will now be sent on courses in the UK.
Orbán’s support for MCC and other institutions that espouse his ideas has been described by one supporter of the Hungarian prime minister as an attempt to create a worldwide “deep state” to cement his legacy.
Some alumni of MCC have told the Guardian that the college appeared to select bright students from modest backgrounds, who were taken to expensive restaurants and on foreign trips and addressed by far-right speakers including the US broadcaster Tucker Carlson and Orbán himself.
Orbán, who won his fourth consecutive term last year, has been hostile towards LGBTQ+ people, asylum seekers, NGOs and the independent media, with MCC a key part of how he wields cultural power. This year MCC bought Hungary’s largest bookseller, which subsequently began wrapping children’s and young adult books that feature LGBTQ+ characters in plastic.
A key connection in the UK is James Orr, a Cambridge divinity academic who has close links to a series of rightwing Conservative MPs. Orr co-runs the UK branch of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation and has close links to MCC.
Orr, who told the Guardian he had no knowledge about any move into London by MCC, was one of the organisers of May’s National Conservatism conference, which was attended by a series of Conservative ministers and MPs. He is also involved in a thinktank with the Tory MPs Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates.
Among members of the Scruton foundation’s advisory board are John Hayes, another leading culture war-friendly Conservative MP, and Douglas Murray, the Spectator writer, who is also a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute, a rightwing thinktank partly funded by the Hungarian state.
Hayes and Murray were among speakers at the National Conservatism event along with Kruger and Cates, who gave speeches heavily infused with Orbán-like ideas such as concern about low birthrates.
Several sources, including within the MCC, say the plan is to open a branch of the college inside the Hungarian cultural centre, set in a grand office building on Cockspur Street. However, an MCC spokesperson said this was not yet the case.
MCC has outposts in Vienna, Brussels, Budapest and elsewhere. While the college’s leadership says it is a diverse place where conservative students can engage in debates without the fear of being “cancelled”, some former students argue it is more aimed at indoctrinating young people into Orbán-friendly views.
Bence Szechenyi, a US national of Hungarian origin who is a former fellow at MCC in Budapest, said: “MCC is explicitly political and has a conservative agenda that they push subliminally and explicitly. Employees have told me about how they make sure any invited speakers are ideologically consistent with their conservative mission.”
One current student, speaking anonymously, said it was hard not to be swayed by the college’s resources. “When you’re 18, it influences you. You are coming from a little village and everyone treats you like you could become the next prime minister or attache. They are taking you around the country to all the best restaurants.”
Since 2021, MCC has organised student trips to the UK for so-called Scruton lectures, also named after the philosopher, whose views are so revered in Orbán’s Hungary that a series of cafes in Budapest are named after him.
Orbán has been explicit about the aim of his government’s lavish programme of international soft-power outreach. “This war is a culture war,” he told last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas. “We have to revitalise our churches, our families, our universities and our community institutions.”
In an interview in May, Rod Dreher, a US conservative writer who now lives in Budapest and is a strong supporter of Orbán, said the Hungarian leader was trying to secure his legacy.
“I think one of the reasons that the Orbán government is building up all these institutions using government funds and government power is because he knows he’s not going to be prime minister for ever,” Dreher told Foreign Policy magazine. “And he wants to have some sort of deep state built that will be able to survive whoever is coming.”
