“Our special relationship is with neighbours 21 miles away”

“Our special relationship is with neighbours 21 miles away”

On June 18, a special election in northwest England will determine whether Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister since 2024, will face an immediate challenge to his premiership led by the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and former health secretary Wes Streeting. Following a referendum in 2016, the UK left the European Union in January 2020 and Starmer became Labour Party leader three months later, swiftly imposing a Brexit omertà on the centre-left. Instead of endless debate, he said his government would “Make Brexit Work” outside the 30-nation single market (the European Economic Area, EEA). Even supposedly ardent Remainer ministers fell silent for five years. That’s now over as a Labour Party leadership election looms and polling reveals widespread Bregret across every region and demographic group except the over-65s. But what does it mean in practical terms? To reunite a fracturing left-wing vote, should Labour offer a multi-year programme to rejoin the EU? Or, instead of pursuing something so ambitious, should it plan to return to the EEA, or seek sector-by-sector agreements like Switzerland? To discuss the options, host Tim Jones brought together Peter Foster [https://www.ft.com/peter-foster], the Financial Times’s world trade editor and author of What Went Wrong With Brexit And What We Can Do About It [https://canongate.co.uk/books/5012-what-went-wrong-with-brexit-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/], and Neil Kinnock, the Labour Party’s leader from 1983-92 and European Commissioner for transport and administrative reform from 1995-2004. “We’ve got to really assert, because it’s backed by all reality, that our special relationship is with neighbours 21 miles away,” says Kinnock. “And all the mythology – and a lot of it is mythology – of our special relationship with the United States of America has to be displaced and replaced by a recognition of unavoidable realities”. “The British public are as ‘cakeist’ about Europe as their politicians are because the politicians have never explained to them what the trade-offs are. They’ve never made the arguments, and Keir Starmer is the worst in some ways for that,” says Foster. “I think it is a genuinely difficult and bleak prospect. In some ways, maybe the thing that has to happen is something really bad, where it becomes really obvious that economically and strategically our position lies with Europe”. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones [https://www.clippings.me/users/timgwynnjones], is a podcast from 242.news [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com/] - a Substack newsletter covering the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Péter Magyar “behaves like a tank”

Last week’s election-eve podcast with Ábel Bede and Gabriela Greilinger was meant to be the last in Twenty-Four Two’s special 15-episode series on Hungary. But, after the partying in Budapest and the incoming prime minister’s hilariously unforgiving first moves, we couldn’t resist a post mortem with political scientist Gábor Scheiring [https://www.gaborscheiring.com/]. Among the hot and bad social-media takes on Péter Magyar’s landslide victory over Viktor Orbán, the winners have to be: See how quickly Orbán conceded - this was never the dictatorship you said it was! (from the right). No one credible said it was. Magyar isn’t the liberal you think he is (from the left). No one credible said he was. “A competitive authoritarian regime is a competitive authoritarian regime,” Scheiring tells us. “As long as you have elections, it’s possible to beat the ruling party, but it’s just hard, right? It’s much harder than in a free and fair democracy with free and fair elections”. Orbán conceded quickly because his defeat was undeniable. “I’m pretty convinced they had multiple scenarios and multiple playbooks but the result was so overwhelming, they couldn’t really do anything. What do you do against a landslide? Your only option is to use the military and repress society, and the next question is: do you really want to enter Hungarian history books as the dictator despised by his own people who used the country’s security forces to stay in power?” Formerly a left-wing MP who now teaches at Georgetown University in Qatar, Scheiring doesn’t share Magyar’s conservatism but he is optimistic that the new premier will restore liberal democracy and maybe even pluralism. “He has more than two-thirds majority and huge symbolic capital, and now he has the momentum. There’s a Hungarian political scientist Eszter Kováts and she used the term: he behaves ‘like a tank [https://napunk.dennikn.sk/hu/5274503/tankkent-ment-elore-nem-volt-b-terve-es-nem-kotott-kompromisszumokat-kovats-eszter-politologus-magyar-peter-sikererol/]’, and he does indeed behave like a tank and he should go on with this impetus and momentum”. Gábor Scheiring’s The Retreat of Liberal Democracy: Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary was published in 2020. His next book with Benedek Jávor, How Democracracies Revive: Why Illiberalism Keeps Winning And What To Do About It, will be published in 2027. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones [https://www.clippings.me/users/timgwynnjones] and Pepijn Bergsen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pepijn-bergsen/], is a podcast from 242.news [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com/] - a Substack newsletter covering the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This really is the last podcast in our Hungary series but we’ll be back soon to talk European politics from a (small-l, small-d) liberal-democratic perspective. We’ll cover national elections in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia and Bosnia, state elections in eastern Germany, Iceland’s referendum on EU accession negotiations, British reconvergence with the EU, and the geopolitical, military and economic settlement Ukraine when it comes. And more. Subscribe (free) to the podcast and to 242.news [http://www.242.news/]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

"He's more of a surfer"

This is it. On Sunday, Hungarians will vote to keep or kill Viktor Orbán’s 16-year “illiberal” electoral autocracy. To talk about the last days of the election campaign and opposition activists’ tempered hopes for regime change, Tim and Pepijn are joined on the Twenty-Four Two Podcast by Ábel Bede [https://www.linkedin.com/in/abel-bede279143144/] and Gabriela Greilinger [https://gabrielagreilinger.com/] from the invaluable English-language Hungarian Observer [https://hungarianobserver.substack.com/]. Ábel, who is a freelance journalist, reports to us from the manic campaign trail of opposition Tisza leader Péter Magyar. Gabriela, a doctoral candidate in far-right politics and democratic backsliding at the University of Georgia, digs into the deep links between Orbánism and the American right. With two days to go, hopes (and fears of hubris) are high. The latest independent polls suggest Tisza could even win a two-thirds majority that would allow a Magyar government to rewrite the constitution, purge Orbánism from the institutions and restore liberal democracy and political pluralism. But how trusted is he to do this? Magyar is “not a leader who Hungarian opposition-minded individuals suddenly decided to follow,” says Ábel. “He’s more of a surfer. He’s riding the waves of huge, huge dissatisfaction with the Orbán regime”. “The Tisza voting coalition is basically a lot of left-leaning and liberal voters, and then also a few right-wing voters, which is a very broad coalition that you need to hold together,” says Gabriela. “The fact of the matter is that you needed that in Hungary to unseat Viktor Orbán because of the way the electoral system is made … It only works that way. You need to have a big party, a big-tent party to unseat Viktor Orbán and from then on, and you can rebuild”. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones [https://www.clippings.me/users/timgwynnjones] and Pepijn Bergsen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pepijn-bergsen/], is a podcast from 242.news [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com/] - a Substack newsletter covering the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is the last podcast on Hungary but we will be back soon to talk European politics from a liberal-democratic perspective and especially for 2027 and elections in France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Slovakia. So, subscribe (free) to the podcast and to 242.news [http://www.242.news]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

“Those people don’t care about Vance”

Fearing electoral defeat on April 12, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán begged for an endorsement visit from Donald Trump but will have to make do with an April 7-8 fly-by from vice-president JD Vance and his wife. That Orbán believes Vance’s endorsement could push him over the line is in keeping with an election campaign in which the ruling Fidesz party has focused on nothing but their champion’s experience on the foreign stage and hysterical warnings that Péter Magyar, Orbán’s challenger, will follow the EU and Ukraine into war with Russia. No friend of Ukraine or Europe, Vance can be trusted to stick to this line but independent polling strongly suggests it’s not working. “If the issue is that your wife wants to give birth in the local hospital and there’s no doctor to help her so you have to travel hundreds of kilometres to the more central hospital, I don’t think Vance makes a big difference,” says political scientist Miklós Sükösd on the latest Twenty-Four Two Podcast. “Diehard Fidesz fans? But even for them … the voting base of Orbán is older people in the countryside, especially in villages – it’s only in villages where he has a large constituency now and less-educated people including the Roma minority. Those people don’t care about Vance”. Our 15-episode series [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com/podcast] on Hungary’s pivotal election has covered everything from Orbánism to economics to corruption and false-flag attacks but, until today, we hadn’t dissected Orbán’s rival. The perfectly named Magyar turned on Fideszworld only two years ago and built a mass movement from scratch. Who is he? Where did he come from? How different from Orbán is he? And can he be trusted to return liberal democracy to Hungary after 16 years of creeping autocracy and a “mafia state”? To answer these questions, there’s no one better than Miklós Sükösd [https://comm.ku.dk/staff/?pure=en/persons/490145]. A media scholar and associate professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Copenhagen, Sükösd wrote The Challenge [https://hvg.hu/cimke/a-kihivas-magyar-peter-sorozat] – an epic four-part (so far) study of Magyar for HVG – and will publish a book later this year on the man who may be Hungary’s next prime minister. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones [https://www.clippings.me/users/timgwynnjones] and Pepijn Bergsen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pepijn-bergsen/], is a podcast from 242.news [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com/] - a Substack newsletter covering the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

“This is a special opportunity to get rid of Orbán"

It’s T-minus 14 days until an election that will decide whether Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister since 2010 and icon for global nativism, gets another four-year term for Fidesz or is ousted by Péter Magyar’s Tisza movement. In the final days of the campaign, Fidesz is throwing everything - allegations of sexual misconduct [https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/02/12/hungarys-opposition-leader-peter-magyar-calls-out-russian-style-tactics-as-campaign-turns-] and drug use [https://www.krone.at/4088077], claims of interference by the Ukrainian “terrorist state [https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/swiat/viktor-orban-atakuje-ukraine-to-panstwo-terrorystyczne/csq0mw4]”, intelligence-service surveillance [https://www.direkt36.hu/megszolal-a-nyomozo-aki-belulrol-ismeri-a-tisza-elleni-muvelet-ugyet/], and a visit by US vice-president J.D. Vance - at Magyar. Yet the latest Median poll [https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hungarys-opposition-tisza-party-widens-lead-over-orbans-fidesz-poll-says-2026-03-25/] shows a growing lead for Tisza - a centre-right party founded only six years ago and repurposed in 2024 as a Magyar vehicle. As an electoral coalition, Tisza - binding together urban liberals and disgruntled non-metropolitan conservatives - is proving uniquely difficult for Fidesz to kill. “This is a special opportunity to get rid of Orbán,” says László Andor, the secretary-general of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) - a Brussels-based think tank affiliated to the Party of European Socialists (PES). “There are many people who now say they will vote for Tisza on April 12 but not because they’re enthusiastic, not because they would want to stay with them for a long time but in order to benefit from this joy: the person of the prime minister would change in Hungary after 16 years and this Fidesz gang could be sent into retirement or maybe worse. This is about one opportunity”. This joy is tempered for Andor, an economist who advised Hungarian centre-left prime minister Péter Medgyessy (2002-24) and served as European commissioner for employment and social affairs (2010-2014) under president José Durão Barroso. It is “not good if Hungary, with all this jubilation, delivers a parliament without a centre-left or without a left at all,” he tells the Twenty-Four Two Podcast. “In all likelihood, Hungary ends up now with a parliament with the centre-right, the far-right and the extreme-right or maybe just the centre-right and the far-right. That’s not something people normally celebrate in the European Union. I would certainly not celebrate this”. If Tisza wins the election, Andor hopes the left will quickly start preparing for municipal and European Parliament elections in 2029. “That’s a lot of time to prepare, to come forward with new initiatives … Normally, in order to have progressive parties, you need progressive movements. You need a trade union movement with more energy. You need environmentalist movements. You need a student movement. You need a feminist movement. You need a peace movement. You need all different type of movements … to uphold politically the progressive alternative in a country”. Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones [https://www.clippings.me/users/timgwynnjones] and Pepijn Bergsen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pepijn-bergsen/], is a podcast from 242.news [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com/] - a Substack newsletter covering the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com [https://twentyfourtwo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]