Hungary has defended Europe against civilisational erasure

It is hard to overstate the significance of Petér Magyar’s victory in the Hungarian election. Nonetheless, within hours of the result, there was no shortage of naysayers already downplaying it on social media.

Magyar, they warn, is a conservative nationalist who was a Fidesz member until just two years ago, he is a hardliner on immigration and opposed to Ukraine’s accelerated EU accession. Even with a two-thirds parliamentary supermajority, they add that it will take years to dismantle Orbán’s “illiberal democracy”, during which time he is bound to fall short of the inflated expectations of his liberal supporters. 

These quibbles miss the scale of what has happened. Magyar’s policy positions on immigration, Ukraine and social policy are well within the mainstream of European conservatism. But that is hardly the point. The significance of his victory lies in what he had to overcome: an electoral system extensively gerrymandered in Fidesz’s favour; a national…