Magyar with Boris Johnson’s book and his trademark smug smile on lake Balaton
Hungary’s Prime Minister has published a photo of himself reading former British Conservative PM, Boris Johnson’s biography on Winston Churchill. Hard to tell what the projected message was meant to be, as apart from his truly hardcore supporters, there will be few to whom Churchill will spring to mind spontaneously when looking at Péter Magyar sitting on a luxury yacht in sunglasses fondling a cantaloupe in an all too obviously Freudian manner. Ironically though, the author of the book, Boris Johnson, shares a number of similarities, along with obvious dissimilarities, with the new Hungarian head of government. And that should perhaps give reason for pause to any Hungarian who values national sovereignty.
After seeing the aforementioned photograph, László Toroczkai, leader of the Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) Party has remarked by saying that
I saw that Péter Magyar was reading Boris Johnson’s book today on a Balaton sailboat. This is a bad omen, because despite the fact that Boris Johnson campaigned as anti-immigration before his election, the number of immigrants arriving in the United Kingdom from outside Europe grew brutally during his premiership. A very bad role model.”
Although Toroczkai does make a fair point, there are significantly more bad omens than merely the similarities between Johnsons’ past open-borders failures, and Magyar’s widely predicted imminent betrayal on the same front.
Ma is, ahogy 12 éve folyamatosan, a migrációs helyzetet elemeztük az ásotthalmi mezőőrséggel a magyar-szerb határon. Fontos beszélni a témáról, mert június 12-én Magyarországon is hatályba lép az EU migrációs paktuma.
Láttam, Magyar Péter Boris Johnson könyvét olvasta ma a… pic.twitter.com/IL9OOpzbrM
— Toroczkai László (@ToroczkaiLaszlo) June 7, 2026
One could raise the obvious question here: what common features could there possibly be between a highly educated proponent of Brexit, and his not so subtle Hungarian counterpart, who is widely considered to be a Brussels-annointed proxy-leader and protégé in the heart of the Carpathian Basin? Well, apart from both betraying their wives in a very public fashion, of course.
First of all, despite one writing a truly magnificent book on Churchill, and the other one taking a selfie with it, as politicians, they are both the absolute antithesis of the great war-time leader.
Despite, similarly to Churchill, both being descendants of social aristocracies, yes, both Johnson and Magyar were born in privileged families with a silver spoon in their mouth, this is where similarities stop. If the man, who pledged to fight a hostile invasion “on the seas and oceans, in the air, and on the beaches,” and who swore “never to surrender” was someone Johnson has genuinely aspired to imitate, then by most accounts he has failed spectacularly. As Mr. Toroczkai has pointed out, under his government between 2019 and 2022, gross legal/long-term immigration exceeded 2 million, plus another roughly 80.000 illegal arrivals by small boats. All this, despite the fact that he has pledged to reduce immigration. The phenomenon is affectionately referred to by the British public as the “Boris-wave”.
Boris Johnson. Photo: Garry Knight, Wikimedia
Mr. Magyar has only been in office for just over a month, thus he should not be expected to compete with these impressive, though unenviable figures just yet. However, signs are that he will put up just as much resistance against the consequences of the EU’s catastrophic migration policies as his British counterpart did. The sudden, and fairly conspicuous disappearance of the European Commission’s previously grave rule-of-law concerns over Hungary have given rise to interpretations that Magyar has bowed to the two central shibolleths of Brussels’ politics: satisfying Kyiv’s every demand, and embracing uncontrolled migration. Despite his loud pre-election declarations about protecting Hungary against mass-migration, Magyar has been worryingly silent, or at best purposefully ambiguous, when asked about the details of his agreement concerning Brussels’ infamous Migration Pact. Should he follow Johnson’s advice on the issue, then he will take the route of least resistance peppered with triumphant declarations to the opposite of what is actually happening on the ground. Until he is also booted out by the electorate, that is.
And then there is the much championed myth about Magyar and his TISZA party allegedly being “right-wing”, or even “conservative”. Even some right-leaning “experts” have fallen for this fabrication in the spirit of some very shallow wishful thinking. TISZA is none of these by any stretch of imagination. Quite the opposite. They have a PM whose single policy focus is the destruction of FIDESZ’s legacy, a sovereign, Christian, conservative Hungary. Their Foreign Minister was educated by globalist U.S. neocons, the minister of education is a staunch gender-ideology proponent, and the PM’s political advisor and deputy prime minister was poached from the failed Hungarian socialists and liberals.
TISZA is just like Johnson’s monster of a political offspring, a multi-culturalist, pro-migration, open borders, pro-LGBTQ faux conservative creation.
Furthermore, even the best of the recent British conservative crop would be highly unsuitable for the Hungarian context as political role-models. British conservativism, when put at work on a governmental level, lacks precisely the three fundamental elements of that championed by Viktor Orbán’s FIDESZ. Their much overused, yet fundamentally correct, slogan was “God, family, nation”. British conservatives have not managed to find a common ethos for the multicultural society that they helped creating, in which the country could meet in any of the three above ethical pillars. This and their political cowardice has condemned them to abject failure.
Winston Churchill. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
It would be fair to say that Viktor Orbán himself had an overly strong fascination with British conservativism, probably without realizing its fundamental flaws. However, British conservative politics’ epic failure after 14 years in power, of which the Johnson government was a prime example, was not simply coincidental – it was systemic and goes back to its philosophical and moral roots. And just like British voters had enough of the promises of a party that called itself Conservative, opting instead for one (Labour) that views British national interest not as a goal, but as an obstacle and a threat, so did many Hungarian voters. In fact, whatever happened between David Cameron and Rishi Sunak, can very well be described by the left’s much touted concept – cultural misappropriation. Still, in contrast with British conservatives, whose downfall was a result of their obsession with adapting to the spirit of the age, Viktor Orbán’s conservatives fell on the opposite side – through being terrified of change.
Campaigning with “remaining the same”, like Orbán did, could be the winning formula if one has numbers like Nayib Bukele, not when your opponent, who is campaigning on change, leads with 25 points in the polls.
Nevertheless, TISZA has integrated into its image the same fake, if you like, culturally misappropriated conservativism, that is now the trademark feature of their own political family in the EU, the European People’s Party (EPP), and its German beating heart, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). You have heard the “C”, Christian in the CDU’s name mentioned in Friedrich Merz’s or any of his predecessor’s campaign roughly as many times, as you have seen Boris Johnson inaugurating new World War II memorials, or statues to his hero, Churchill. None. And as tragic this may be in the long term for Hungary, Péter Magyar fits into this club rather well. Add faux national patriotic slogans, take away Merz’s composure and Johnson’s undeniable eloquence, and you have Hungary’s new prime minister at a photo op with a book on a political hero, who would have done anything to avoid being in the same boat with a post-modern, influencer-type politician, like Magyar is.
Featured Photo: Facebook Péter Magyar
