520. Orbán Ousted: Is The Tide Turning Against Far-Right Populism?

Does Hungary ousting its far-right prime minister prove rightwing populists and autocrats can be beaten around the world, from Trump and Farage to Netanyahu and Milei? Does JD Vance have the midas touch, after his desperate last-ditch efforts last week to get Orbán re-elected? What does Orbán’s departure mean for Putin, Ukraine, and European unity? Join Alastair as he reacts to the end of Viktor Orbán's sixteen-year reign over Hungary. __________ Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus: Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, exclusive newsletters, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at https://fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription. Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith, Adam Thornton Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:01Alastair Campbell?

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• 2:28Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You're stalled, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  I'm not the first then.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd, rated R, under 17, not a minute without parent.

• 2:51Alastair Campbell?

  Hi there, welcome to The Rest Is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell. Raul is still away, he's back in action tomorrow, but I felt we couldn't really let the events of the last 24 hours pass without reflecting on just how big a moment this is, the end of Viktor Orban's rule of Hungary. 16 years, four terms, enough time to create what many people have called a mafia state, and where Orban had become so much more than the leader of a country of fewer than 10 million people. He'd become a symbol of far-right, kleptocratic, authoritarian nationalism, which, because Donald Trump is back in the White House, pursuing much the same agenda, and often citing Orban

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

  as an inspiration, many had assumed was the winning formula for modern politics and modern campaigns. Orban has lost, and he's lost big, so big that he had no option but to throw in the towel long before all the votes were even counted. But he's not the only loser. Trump lost, Vladimir Putin lost, Milley, Maloney, Netanyahu, plenty of fellow right-wing leaders broke that basic rule of not interfering in other countries' elections to say, "Vote Orban." And they lost too, because in so doing, they put themselves and their politics on the ballot alongside him. And that's why this election is not just about Hungary, which is a landlocked country

• 4:17Alastair Campbell?

  that could fit inside Indiana, a single American state, it's seven times smaller than Texas, and 180 times smaller than Russia. This is about what it says about what happens when the politics and policies of far-right nationalism are actually exposed to real challenge and real scrutiny. And it shows they can be beaten. Now, Trump went further than most, he sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to campaign for Orban, and in the vital final week... He sent Vice President JD Vance, who seems to have been as effective at driving up the Orban vote as he was at leading the talks in Islamabad to end the war with Iran.

• 5:00Alastair Campbell?

  That guy is turning out to be quite a loser. On election day itself, Trump and his family and friends, who like Orban's friends and family are getting very rich on the back of their guy being in power, posted relentlessly on social media, urging Hungarians to vote Orban to have a direct line to the White House. And guess what? The Hungarians queued from dawn, voted in record numbers, 80% turnout, to say, "No, thank you, Trump. No, thank you, Musk. No, thank you, Mr. Vance. Take your interference elsewhere." What was it President Zelensky said in our interview that was out earlier this week? "I'm not sure sending JD is a good idea for Orban." Well, how right he was.

• 5:44Alastair Campbell?

  As for Putin, he sent in money to burn and agents galore. Where once the Kremlin enemy to be plastered all over Orban's election posters was George Soros, now it was President Zelensky and President Ursula von der Leyen. Anyone in Budapest in recent weeks would have thought that they, not Orban and Magyar, were the candidates. And guess what? It seems a lot of Hungarians seem to think that Ukraine is a country worth backing, Russia is a country worth fighting against, and the EU a body worth being part of and worth supporting. So the money spent on bribing voters has been wasted. The win that was so big that the Kremlin's planned operation to claim that Magyar had stolen votes,

• 6:29Alastair Campbell?

  get this, they were even going to announce the setting up of a democracy protection unit was not even fully activated. As in Moldova, where they launched a similar operation against Myosandu, the Russians head home defeated. For now, they'll keep going. So Trump loses, Putin loses, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Alice Vidal and the AfD, they lose because the playbook they thought would see them coast to power, it looks a lot less solid than it once was. Closeness to Trump, fondness for Putin, love of money and using politics to get rich, all now exposed as real handicaps, not assets.

• 7:12Alastair Campbell?

  And it's about time their opponents understood they are there to be taken apart with greater confidence than thus far shown. What Magyar has shown is that with the right strategy, with confidence and conviction, these people can not just be beaten, they can be thrashed. Now, don't get me wrong, Peter Magyar is a very unlikely hero for anyone on the progressive left of politics. He himself is a former leading light in Orban's Fidesz party. He's well to the right of some of the European political figures who've been rejoicing at his win. But he matched the strategy to the needs of the time and he deserves all the plaudits coming his way for that.

• 7:53Alastair Campbell?

  Now, the hard part begins, though the scale of the win means he should be able to undo most of Orban's egregious changes. I hope some of you have listened to the first part of our mini-series on populism, in which we've been talking to Labour MP Liam Byrne about his book on why the populists are winning and how to defeat them. Now, we delayed part two for a week because of the Zelensky interview, that'll be out on Friday. But Magyar's campaign fits with some of the advice that Liam gave in last week's episode. You have to listen to voters and you do not condemn them because of their different views, you respect the differences and you try to persuade them to your side.

• 8:37Alastair Campbell?

  Fidesz, for example, thought that they had a monopoly on Hungarian nationalism. Magyar developed a language and a style that spoke to a more inclusive version of it. Like Trump, Orban portrayed his own politics and his own supporters as "the country", casting all critics as outsiders. Magyar sought to appeal to Fidesz voters as part of a shared political and national community, and it worked. I often talk, as you know, of the three Ps: populism, polarisation, post-truth. Liam Byrne says the populists rely on three As: appeasement, autocracy and avarice. Appeasement means making people feel you can't beat them, so you may as well join them.

• 9:22Alastair Campbell?

  Sit it out. Magyar refused to accept you couldn't win. No to appeasement, no to doing deals. Civil society, despite massive pressures on them, never gave up. And they and Magyar exposed the autocracy and the avarice, not to claim some kind of moral superiority, but to show that the living standards of ordinary people were harmed by the corruption of the ruling elite. And this is where Orban really screwed it up for himself. I talked to Dominic Sandbrook about this on the podcast last week when he stood in for Rory. Pointed out that if you win power by posing as a man of the people, fighting a corrupt elite,

• 10:01Alastair Campbell?

  and you become the corrupt elite yourself, don't be too shocked if the people turn against you. Now Putin could get around that by going full on dictator. Orban, not least because Hungary is in the European Union, more constrained. But the more EU resources seem to be landing in the hands of his inner circle, his best friend, a former gaspeter, becomes the richest man in Hungary, the more Magyar was able to relate the industrial-scale corruption to people's everyday lives. A part of Orban's hubris was that because he developed a near-Putin-like grip on the media, he assumed that their 24/7 propaganda on his behalf would work.

• 10:43Alastair Campbell?

  But real public opinion, much of it, stopped listening ages ago. It's why, when I tried to talk him into coming on the podcast, when I met him at the Germany-Scotland game in the 2024 Euros, I said to him, "You can't spend your whole time just preaching to the converted. You need to be challenged a bit." He was very charming about it as the film of our chat recorded, but he didn't agree. I have to say, Victor, the offer still stands. I suspect the same hubris made him think that Hungary would be proud that the leader of their little country was so admired by Trump, Putin and all the rest. But no, it turns out they were ashamed of it. Trump is so narcissistic, he cannot see what is plain

• 11:23Alastair Campbell?

  to most of us, that among all but the true believers, his brand is truly tanking. Anthony Albanese in Australia, Mark Carney in Canada, and Magyar, Trump has helped them all win. Might I suggest, Keir Starmer, that he leans a little harder into the opprobrium Trump keeps sending in his direction. Embrace it, wear it as a badge of pride. Check out Mark Carney's speech at the weekend, no missing. Check out Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish Prime Minister. Is he backing down in the face of all the threats and the insults? Far from it. The Trump illusion of omnipotence, like the Orban myth of invincibility, is wearing

• 12:04Alastair Campbell?

  thin. Now, as with Donald Tusk, who defeated the far right in Poland, so Magyar will now find considerable resistance from the forces Orban has cemented into all aspects of Hungarian life. But the scale of his victory really helps. Orban conceding defeat so quickly, whatever the motivations, was a signal of that. It means Magyar might actually be able to deliver on campaign promises, including systemic institutional change to unlock more than 6 billion euros of EU funding. And the other big winner, thank heavens, is Ukraine. Orban has been doing Putin's bidding for too long. The leaked conversations recently

• 12:44Alastair Campbell?

  between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Hungarian counterpart expose that for all to see. Orban has sought to block and undermine EU support for President Zelensky at every turn. It's now likely, definitely possible, probably probable, that the long promised 90 billion euros of support will begin to flow. That could be a lifesaver at a time that Russia is benefiting from the oil price rise and Trump's indifference to Ukraine and frankly, what looks like loathing of Europe. If you haven't listened to the Zsulinski interview yet, please do. As he himself admits, no leader is perfect. But when you compare his leadership skills, courage, the values, honesty, consistency,

• 13:27Alastair Campbell?

  dare I say perseverance, against the leadership values of Trump. As a retired diplomat messaged me on the back of listening to the interview, Trump is not fit to lace Zsulinski's boots. Trump's election win sending him back to the White House was a big blow to liberal democracy and a big blow to Ukraine and so to Europe. The ordinary people of Hungary have shown there is another way, which is why the celebrations are taking place well beyond the country's borders. And just on that, we got lots of emails from listeners. We do seem to have plenty of listeners in Hungary and I want to close by reading one out that we got this morning from somebody by the name of Dorina. She says, "My name is Dorina.

• 14:07Alastair Campbell?

  As of a few years and as of a few hours ago, I'm a 32-year-old, proud again Hungarian. I wanted to give you an insight into what we're feeling today in Budapest. It's like New Year's Eve. People are lighting fireworks, everyone is on the streets. We genuinely cannot believe this has happened. We're having the biggest party of our lives, we're not going home anytime soon. I wanted to thank you for your coverage of the elections because it helped me illustrate its significance when I was speaking to non-Hungarian friends. We already felt the wind of change on Friday when we went to a huge regime change concert, but we didn't dare hope. Now we can. We're optimistic and looking forward to the future. Peter Magyar is not perfect.

• 14:51Alastair Campbell?

  I never would have voted for him under normal circumstances, but he's our best chance and I really, really hope he will not let us down. Thank you for all you do and for rooting for us now. Let's get on working to get the UK back into the European Union too. All the best from an extremely happy Hungarian." So there you go, that's how she's feeling, that's I'm sure how others are feeling, it's frankly how I'm feeling as well. Back for more later in the week when Rory's back from his holiday. Lots to talk about, Hungary of course, Ukraine, Iran, elections in Scotland and Wales and local councils on May the 7th. So much to talk about in the main episode and in Question Time. See you then, but for now, well done Hungary.

• 15:43Speaker 04

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  On October 2nd.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess.

• 15:55Speaker 04

  And Digger's gonna dig us out.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.