As soon as the results of Hungary’s general election were announced last month, and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán fell from power, headlines began welcoming the retreat of the populist right—not only in Hungary but across Europe and the wider world. Orbán, whom the media has dubbed the “Prince of Darkness”, appeared to have become the symbol of a defeated political moment.
In those headlines, the world seemed to have recovered its reason, rediscovering the virtues of traditional liberal democracy over the rule of the “strongman”—a form of power that, as Orbán’s opponents and critics of his Fidesz party had long warned, prepares the ground for dictatorship and totalitarian rule.
Only a few weeks passed before Britain’s Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage and perhaps more extreme than Orbán’s party, scored a striking victory in Britain’s local elections. That victory sparked a deep political crisis and cast renewed light on the rigidity of Britain’s two-party system, as well as its inability to fulfil even the promises candidates make shortly before entering office.
Things got murkier when the “Unite the Kingdom” march in London, called by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, was held. It pointed to an increasingly assertive far-right movement in the UK, which would go to great lengths to realise its goals.
On the other side of the aisle, there is Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose Spanish Socialist Party is pursuing a left-wing course in domestic and foreign policy. His political success, along with the relative stability of democracy in Scandinavian countries, shows that amid this right-wing wave across Europe—including the Netherlands and France—there are notable exceptions.
But beneath the surface of Orbán’s fall and the increasing possibility that the UK and France could take a decisive turn to the far right lies a deeper reality. Voters are drifting further from centrist currents that have dominated public life since the end of the Second World War and moving towards radical forces on both the right and the left. These include the Green Party in Britain, La France Insoumise under Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, Sánchez’s Socialists in Spain, where Podemos has declined without losing its weight, and similar movements in other countries.
