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Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ Most people in the Twenty-Six-County’s and a few in the Six would have been forgiven thinking British Imperialism departed this part of Ireland over one-hundred years ago. 

When the ‘Terms of the Agreement’ were signed by British and Irish delegates on 6th December 1921 which, once ratified by Westminster and Dublin Parliaments and voted on in what has been termed a ‘Treaty Election’ in 1922, the Terms of Agreement became a Treaty between Ireland and Britain. 

To most who fought in the Irish Civil War, pro and anti-treaty factions of the once unified IRA the question was simple. If the Treaty was supported it would mean partition of the country and/or an oath of allegiance to the British Monarch, apparently minor details! 

To anti-treaty supporters these conditions were unacceptable while to those who supported the Treaty, they were a ‘stepping stone towards full freedom’. The pro-treaty side won both on the battlefield and in the political chambers and the ‘Terms’ were passed by 64 in favour with 57 opposing. There was no formal public referendum but the public showed support by voting for pro-treaty representatives both at local and national elections. The question was, and perhaps still is, were the public furnished with all the facts about the treaty before voting for representatives supportive of said treaty? Considered by many as a betrayal of the republic there were many other hidden agendas contained within the Terms of the Agreement – immediate forerunner of the Treaty. One issue which remained and, apparently still does, is that of landlordism and its absentee variant.

Throughout the nineteenth century rural Ireland launched many campaigns, some armed and violent, against landlordism and those landlords absent living in Britain and England in particular. Absentee Landlords made huge amounts of money out of lands they owned in Ireland charging high rents from tenants to live on these estates. The struggle to end the system which facilitated ‘Absentee Landlords’ resulted in various Land Acts between 1870 and 1923 which supposedly broke the landlord system. However it appears the Duke of Devonshire, Peregrine Cavendish, and his son William Cavendish, the Earl of Burlington, owners of Lismore Estates in the Knockmealdown Mountains in County Waterford are practicing absentee landlordism and making a fortune in 2026. It is beyond belief these British parasitical aristocrats can do this in a country who supposedly achieved independence in 1922. It is evident the anti-treaty side were, in principle, correct in the Irish Civil War and the bullshit fed to the population by the fledgeling government side in order to gain their acceptance of said treaty did not contain the whole truth!

The Duke of Devonshire and his son live cosy lives in England doing next to fuck all in productive work. They cream off huge profits from their interests, estates, in Ireland and have decided within their wisdom to increase the rents of sheep farmers who lease 8,000 acres of land from €5 per hectare in 1924 to €50 per hectare by 2029. This represents an increase of 900% on farmers who cannot afford to pay. Lismore Estates will not provide a “letter of evidence” to prove land is being leased. Without such a letter no farm payments will be made and will not be while the dispute continues. It is these requirements on farmers to provide a “commonage evidence letter” which are proving problematic for the farmers which Lismore Estates and their owner, the Duke of Devonshire, are more than aware of and are weaponising.

Sinn Fein TD, Conor McGuiness, raised the issue with the Minister for Agriculture, Martin Heydon TD, in the Dail. Mr McGuiness said; “I know the Minister will not intervene but the department has effectively taken a side in an ongoing dispute by holding farmers over a barrel”. Mr Haydon responded by saying “I am aware of the case in Waterford which Deputy McGuiness has raised”. Some response! 

If as Mr McGuiness claimed and the Minister did not refute Mr Haydon will “not get involved” what the fuck do we have Ministers for? The Minister for Transport will not get involved in transport disputes, the Minister for Health will not get involved in disputes in the Health Service and now the Minister for Agriculture will not get involved in a case which is a throwback to the nineteenth century, why are these highly paid government Ministers in office, what is their purpose? 

Unlike Hauliers, and rich farmers these sheep farmers do not have huge tractors and articulated lorries, each costing a working life’s salary, to use as barricades as do those involved in the fuel dispute. The government are involved in talks with these millionaire farmers and Hauliers but refuse to have anything to do with tackling the Duke of Devonshire who is clearly exploiting these sheep farmers!

The truth is the Twenty-Six-County government are on the side of the rich and powerful, even English ones, and would be prepared to see Irish farmers go to the wall rather than upset the Duke of Devonshire! If this is the case what was the ‘War of Independence’ really all about? Here we have a man living a cushy life in England on money exploited from Irish Sheep Farmers in Ireland who would not be out of place alongside Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott back in 1880. 

Despite these close similarities with those dark old days the Duke of Devonshire appears free to continue the practice of absentee landlordism unmolested by the Twenty-Six-County Government, what kind of administration are they? Why is an English Duke owning land in Ireland in the first place? This is not a little cottage with a few acres it is half a county! Was the War of Independence, among other issues, supposed to rid us of people like Peregrine Cavendish? Many good men and women fought to consign absentee landlordism to the dustbin of history from the Land league, and before, onwards did they really sacrifice their lives for this? Lives sacrificed in order an English Duke can exploit poor Irish Sheep Farmers with rent hikes of 900%?

It has been said the Devonshire’s have been historically good landlords providing money for their tenants during the ‘famine’ of 1845-51. The Cavendish family are and were part of the establishment who through their actions and British Government policies were greatly responsible for the ’famine’ in Ireland. If the Cavendish’s did give money, granted possibly more than others, could it have been conscience money? Guilt for being part of an establishment they refused to condemn as it provided them with a cushy living but, by the same token, felt a certain responsibility for their tenants? If they really wanted to do something they, and others, would have spoken out against the British rich exporting food from Ireland, other than gammy spuds, to be fed upon the tables of the rich and powerful of Britain. It was this removal of beef, dairy, and wheat produce thus leaving the Irish with only a rotten potato crop to live on which was greatly responsible for the ‘famine’ in Ireland which did not occur in other countries hit by potato blight. 

The Devonshire’s would have been much more progressive putting their considerable weight behind stopping these exports of other food stuffs rather than just donating money in the form of various subsidies. The two could have complemented each other, stopping the exports and subsidies. Even allowing for this historical contribution, or lack of, it does not excuse the present Duke of Devonshire increasing rents to €50 per hectare by 2029 from €5 per hectare in 2024. It is the kind of move Captain Boycott would have been proud of especially given what appears to be government support or, at very best, inaction! 
     
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

British Imperialism is Alive And Kicking 🪶 Knockmealdown Mountains

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Forty Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 3118

Jim Duffy ✍ Fascinating analysis and depressing. 

The bungling amateurism of Trump is on display. He goes from knee-jerk reaction to knee-jerk reaction, bungling left, right and centre. A blockade is an Act of War in international law, not that that bothers Trump if he even knows it. It also came out that Hegseth is deliberately giving Trump false information to let him think the US is winning, when it isn't. Trump, famously unread, and who never reads his briefs, is easy to manipulate. He is a glorified man-baby who freaks out like a child when told 'no'.
 
Professor Clarke said before that if the war is still going on by May then it is out-of-control. He believes it is out-of-control right now, from Trump threatening Armageddon a week ago (and Hegseth wants to launch nuclear weapons against Iran), to an illegal blockade now. God knows what insane thing he will do next.
 
And of course the core failure was a typical Trump one - he failed to assemble a coalition of the willing in advance. Both Bush presidents had the common sense to do that.
 
A former Trump Defense Secretary said that Trump is incapable of thing strategically. Everything is a gut kneejerk reaction with no strategic thinking behind it.
 
Meanwhile, having burnt his bridges with the UK and long-standing allies, he has now burnt his bridges with Meloni, once a close friend, all over his dumb comment attacking Pope Leo.
 
Michael also was asked about Lord Robertson's attack on Starmer's complete failure to fix Britain's weak Armed Forces. He agrees 100% with Lord Robertson and Fiona Hill. The defence review aimed to fix the Britain's armed forces by 2035. Starmer has now wasted two of the ten years doing nothing despite time being of the essence as Britain (and Ireland as its weak defence means it relies on the British armed forces for defence) is in a dangerous situation. He also pointed out something I have repeatedly been making too. The way in dangerous times you avoid war is to strengthen your defence, following the Roman dictum by Vegetius, Si vis pacem, para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war.
 
President Connolly like Michael D Higgins entirely misunderstand the rearming going on as indicating that countries rearming want to go to war. It is in fact the exact opposite. They want to avoid war. The weaker a country's defence is, the easier a target it is and so the more an aggressor is encouraged to attack. The stronger a country's defence is, the more risky an attack on it is, and so the less likely an aggressor is to invade. Vegetius's dictum is basically saying 'to avoid war, make your defence strong.'
 
Nor does a smaller state have to equal strength to a larger potential aggressor. All through history, large stronger countries have been defeated, or failed to win, against a smaller one. One only has to look at the failure of Putin's invasion of Ukraine to defeat Ukraine, though Russia on paper was far more powerful. We see it right now in America's inability to defeat Iran.
 
Both Ukraine and Iran have a critical advantage. They are being attacked. That means for them it is an existential threat, so their citizens and military are far more determined. In contrast the attacker is not in an existential threat. Their soldiers are not fighting for the survival of their country. They are being sent into someone else's country as part of their job. They are less emotionally committed to the war than the Ukrainian and Iranian militaries, for whom it is about their country's survival. That always gives the defender an advantage. To win, the attacked country just has to survive. That is victory. The attacker has to destroy the country they are attacking, collapse its institutions, etc.
 
All the advice of Lord Robertson and Professor Hill is that to deter an attack Britain has to properly up its defence. In failing to do so, the Starmer government without realising it is increasing the likelihood of attack.
 
Often it is a battle of psychology as well as military. It is a matter of the demonstrating in your military build-up that you are determined not to give in. You want the potential attacker to think "attacking them is too risky. We may win, but wars are unpredictable and we might not. That country will resist, so attacking them is too much of a risk."

Britain, in the rearmament in 1939 that Chamberlain ordered, messed with Nazi Germany's head. They already lacked aerial dominance when Britain won the Battle of Britain. The Nazis were sufficiently nervous about attacking Britain to put it off while it attacked the USSR. Thankfully it was defeated there as it intended to attack Ireland as well as Britain. The entry of the US into the war at the end of 1941 entirely changed the odd, so the invasions of Britain (Operation Sea Lion) and Ireland (Operation Green) were put off on the very long finger.
 
Psychology is everything, and in the war in Ukraine, Zelenskyy proved a far better leader in the psychological war than Putin. In the psychological war, he proved to be an FDR or Churchill both of whom were exceptional war time leaders and masters of psychological warfare. In contrast, Trump in the Iran War proved to be a disaster psychologically. He failed to bring Congress or the people behind him. He failed to communicate clear goals, and erratically changes his mind daily if not hourly.
So proper defence is not just about defence. It is about the psychological message it conveys to a potential attacker and how that can deter an attack.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

A Blockade Is An Act of War

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ★ Widespread protests against fuel price rises have provoked broad debate on the Irish left, between support and calling for the protests to stop because of the disruption to peoples’s lives. This is the position of the broad socialist organization People Before Profit.

Back the basic demands. Defend the right to protest. Oppose the frauds on the far-right and discuss the protest leaders, but let’s keep coming back to the real issue of unbearable price increases and where they come from. Workers, unions - let’s deepen the movement for a country we can all live in.

The basic demand is right!

For several days Ireland has seen some of the most militant protests in years: roads blocked, fuel depots and the Whitegate refinery targeted, fuel supplies thrown into chaos. The government is under real pressure because the core demand is right and massively popular: price caps on fuel during a cost-of-living crisis that is crushing ordinary people. We have been calling for such caps for years.

Because the government has failed to act we have a cost of living crisis on top of a cost of living crisis.

Continue @ ESSF.

Ireland 🪶 The Fuel Protests 🪶 Blame The Government Not The Protesters

Seamus Kearney 🎤 'When I look back into the past now from this vantage point, I wonder how I survived the war with so many swamp crocodiles swimming in the same waters as me' - Reflections of an IRA soldier.


Having been ordered to remain under the radar after the Culloden debacle, Freddie Scappaticci more or less complied with his puppet masters military directive. 

Two years later, in 1995, he was formally demobbed and stood down from his role as an operative with the Force Research Unit and left 39th Brigade of the British Army for good. For services rendered to Her Majesty's Government Stakeknife was given a life long war pension and told he would enjoy the protection of the security services until death. Similar to the brilliant mathematician and code breaker Alan Turing who cracked the German enigma machine during the Second World War, Stakeknife would not be publicly recognised for his work, with both men becoming invisible to the naked eye. Both men, Alan Turing and Freddie Scappaticci, were told to quietly walk away and return to civilian life by the Ministry of Defence, Turing in 1945 and Scappaticci in 1995.
 
Getting accustomed to 'civvy street ' (civilian life) proved rather difficult for Stakeknife as it was devoid of danger and excitement. He found that most people live rather mediocre lives and he found the whole experience dull and boring. With the Provisional IRA ceasefire in August 1994 there was really no further use for him which meant that he had fallen between two stools, the IRA on one hand and the British Army on the other. This was copper fastened when the Provisional IRA war effectively ended with the permanent cessation in July 1997. The IRA had bombed their way to the conference table, avoided an unconditional surrender and would trade guns for government. The Provisional IRA, its military units and its combat soldiers left the battlefield as an undefeated Army. The baton was then handed over to its political wing to negotiate on behalf of those who had suffered and endured. On their shoulders would sit the spirits of heroes dead.

In 1997 Freddie Scappaticci was playing soccer at Andersonstown Leisure Centre, West Belfast, when a ghost from his past struck him like a bolt of lightning. He looked at one of the players and saw Anthony Braniff who he had helped execute in September 1981 in the face of his brother.

After the 5-a-side soccer match Scappaticci approached the man and told him he resembled Anthony Braniff. and he was told they were brothers. Scappaticci went on to say: "Your brother should never have ended up stretched out under a window", meaning he should never have ended up in a coffin under the living room window. He lied and emphasised that it was the IRA leadership that was responsible and that he was a mere 'messenger'. At that particular time there were early efforts made by the family to open an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death, but those efforts were in their infancy. However, when Scappaticci was asked to help the family by the elder brother, surprisingly he agreed.

This was the beginning of a long and difficult process for the Braniff family who had not only suffered the lose of Anthony in 1981 at the hands of a British infiltrated unit, but had lost their father David Braniff in March 1989 as he knelt reciting the rosary at their home in Alliance Avenue, Ardoyne, North Belfast. A Loyalist death squad fired several shots into the praying man and escaped the scene.

Eventually, and after painstaking work from the brothers, a meeting was set up, but when Scappaticci was told that a representative of the IRA would attend the meeting also, he became extremely apprehensive and probably regretted the conversation earlier at Andersonstown Leisure Centre.

Stakeknife, it seems, was dropping his guard somewhat and becoming more and more careless.
Upon hearing that there would be an IRA presence at the forthcoming meeting Scappatticci immediately stipulated that he would not be entering any location with the IRA if on his own and under their conditions. Therefore, he told Braniff that he would attend the meeting in their family home and he himself would give a short notice prior to showing up at the meeting, thereby taking control away from the IRA. Scappatticci was proving that he knew all about the mechanics of the IRA and would not be walking into a prearranged trap.

Subsequently, once he had given an hour's notice Scapatticci arrived at the Braniff home and began to explain his role in Anthony Braniff's interrogation, claiming he had merely brought Anthony to a house in the Beechmount area of West Belfast and handed him over to the ISU. He named all four individuals involved in the interrogation of Anthony and kept distancing himself from any involvement in his execution. He only admitted to his involvement in the initial interrogation. When the senior IRA representative suddenly entered the Braniff home by the back door and stood menacingly over Scappaticci, telling him to carry on with his speech to the family, Stakeknife realised that his nemesis from Northern Command was in the room, and blurted out: "I claim the 5th Amendment" (the right to remain silent) and walked out.

The whole scenario left the Braniff brothers perplexed after this piece of high drama. However, it was not the end of the theatrical performance as more drama was about to ensue.

Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of  
No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.

Stakeknife 🕵 The Rise And Fall 🕵 Act XIV

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Forty Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3117

37 years ago today 97 Liverpool FC fans were unlawfully killed at Hillsborough Stadium. There followed a horrific and undeniable smear campaign of blame against the people of Liverpool by the establishment, Thatcher's government, a right wing press and the police.



⚽   ⚽   ⚽   ⚽   ⚽   ⚽

Jon-Paul Gilhooley - 10
Philip Hammond - 14
Thomas Anthony Howard - 14
Paul Brian Murray - 14
Lee Nicol - 14
Adam Edward Spearritt - 14
Peter Andrew Harrison - 15
Victoria Jane Hicks - 15
Philip John Steele - 15
Kevin Tyrrell - 15
Kevin Daniel Williams - 15 
Kester Roger Marcus Ball -16 
Nicholas Michael Hewitt - 16
Martin Kevin Traynor - 16
Simon Bell - 17
Carl Darren Hewitt - 17
Keith McGrath - 17 
Stephen Francis O'Neill - 17
Steven Joseph Robinson - 17
Henry Charles Rogers - 17
Stuart Paul William Thompson - 17
Graham John Wright - 17
James Gary Aspinall - 18
Carl Brown - 18
Paul Clark - 18
Christopher Barry Devonside - 18
Gary Philip Jones - 18 
Carl David Lewis - 18
John McBrien - 18
Jonathon Owens - 18
Colin Mark Ashcroft - 19
Paul William Carlile - 19
Gary Christopher Church - 19 
James Philip Delaney - 19
Sarah Louise Hicks - 19
David William Mather - 19
Colin Wafer - 19
Ian David Whelan - 19
Stephen Paul Copoc - 20
Ian Thomas Glover - 20
Gordon Rodney Horn - 20 
Paul David Brady - 21
Thomas Steven Fox - 21
Marian Hazel McCabe - 21
Joseph Daniel McCarthy - 21
Peter McDonnell - 21 
Carl William Rimmer - 21 
Peter Francis Tootle - 21 



David John Benson - 22
David William Birtle - 22 
Tony Bland - 22
Gary Collins - 22
Tracey Elizabeth Cox - 23
William Roy Pemberton - 23
Colin Andrew Hugh William Sefton 23
David Leonard Thomas - 23
Peter Andrew Burkett - 24
Derrick George Godwin - 24
Graham John Roberts - 24
David Steven Brown - 25
Richard Jones - 25
Barry Sidney Bennett - 26
Andrew Mark Brookes - 26
Paul Anthony Hewitson - 26
Paula Ann Smith - 26
Christopher James Traynor - 26
Barry Glover - 27
Gary Harrison - 27
Christine Anne Jones - 27
Nicholas Peter Joynes - 27
Francis Joseph McAllister - 27
Alan McGlone - 28
Joseph Clark - 29
Christopher Edwards - 29
James Robert Hennessy - 29
Alan Johnston - 29
Anthony Peter Kelly - 29
Martin Kenneth Wild - 29
Peter Reuben Thompson - 30
Stephen Francis Harrison - 31
Eric Hankin - 33 
Vincent Michael Fitzsimmons - 34
Roy Harry Hamilton - 34 
Patrick John Thompson - 35
Michael David Kelly - 38 
Brian Christopher Mathews - 38
David George Rimmer - 38
Inger Shah - 38
David Hawley - 39
Thomas Howard - 39
Arthur Horrocks - 41
Eric George Hughes - 42
Henry Thomas Burke - 47
Raymond Thomas Chapman - 50
John Alfred Anderson - 62
Gerard Bernard Patrick Baron - 67 
Andrew Devine - 55




Unlawfully Killed @ 37th Anniversary

Gary Robertson ⚽I think perhaps I’m uber critical of Celtic sometimes. 

After all they’re getting the job done. Another three points in the bag keeps them nicely in the title race. The trouble is one that’s plagued the team for almost all of this season, the lack of attacking options, and this is what should trouble Celtic fans everywhere. 

Whilst our title rivals are scoring goals for fun we’re scrapping through on the odd goal. 1-0, 2-1, sure victories but in a race as tight as this it’s not impossible to believe the league could be won on goal difference. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that come five o’clock on the last day of season 25/26 that 3 teams finish on the same number of points and the trophies handed to Tavernier, Shankland or McGregor based on their respective teams scoring prowess. 

As it stands The Rangers are on +35 after their second half demolition of Falkirk, Hearts having taken care of stuttering Motherwell are +30, and Celtic +24. Of course this will change over the coming weeks but it’s something the board Must address during the close season. Celtic need strikers, goalscorers. I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before but I’d have never let Ireland forward Adam Idah leave. A 20+ goal a season striker, a young man who’s dream was to play for Celtic overshadowed perhaps by Kyogo at the time, he still made a difference, a major contribution to the team. Celtic have nothing in attack that compares to the current Swansea player. Kyogo of course wanted to leave to boost his profile, that’s another story, he was allowed to leave and we’re still looking for a replacement. The one shining star perhaps being Benjamin Nygren who as an attacking midfielder/winger/ occasional forward has scored in almost half of all games he’s played this season. 33 appearances and 15 goals is a more than decent return from the Swede.
 
Sure it’s a hypothetical scenario but it’s one that’s starting to look more likely. No one is going to “run away” with the SPL title but small margins matter, so whilst I’ll take the 1-0 victory over St Mirren the questions that keep me up at night continue to do so.
 
We metaphorically slept soundly under Ange, even leading up to the Glasgow derbies there wasn’t the worry, the fear that exists now.
 
The first question I ask myself as we approach a match isn’t “can we win?” but rather “where will the goals come from?”
 
Hearts are still top, the Rangers in second and Celtic third but a healthy goal difference is as good as a point in any season.
 
Sure this may be a remarkable season, one like we will not see again for some time or this could be the “new normal” as men and women with money continue to creep into our league and create a more level playing field. Suddenly the dominance of the Glasgow clubs has gone and new challengers appear.
 
From a neutral standpoint of course it’s better to have a league where more than two teams fight annually for the title but I’m no neutral.
 
Celtic now face St Mirren again next weekend in the semifinals of the Scottish FA Cup (Sunday 19th 2pm kick off live on Premier Sports 1) before heading into the final five matches of the season.
 
Finally (and for the benefit of Steve R and other lurking fans of the Rangers) performance of the weekend has to go to Danny Röhl and his team. From being 2-1 down at half time, to come back a reinvigorated team in the second half and score five was an outstanding performance. A performance worthy of champions (God forgive me) and whether they win the league or not the Rangers certainly have the man to take them forward and silverware is not far away.
 
There’s little point in speculating who the next Celtic manager will be and although the name Robbie Keane is being linked heavily he won’t be a universally popular appointment for reasons I don’t want to go into here.
 
Time will tell and perhaps the board will do the right thing by the fans for once. With that thought left in your head I’m off to hunt some wild haggis, I know they’re out there, probably hiding with the 20 goal a season strikers that Celtic just can’t seem to find either.

Til next time …

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Small Margins Matter

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ★ Written by 
Brian Hioe.

Jacobin Glorifies Leftist Yellowface, Ignores Chinese Perspectives in Article on “Chinamaxxing”

A recent article in Jacobin by Seth Ackerman on “Chinamaxxing” again reveals the usual blind spots of Western leftists. 

Ackerman discusses the online phenomenon of “Chinamaxxing”– the recent turn of Gen Z teens on social media claiming that they are in a “very Chinese period of their life.” Gen Z teens have taken to mimicking Chinese cultural habits, such as taking off shoes indoors or drinking hot water. 

For Ackerman, this highlights the “kill line” in the US–that living conditions are desperate and marked by scarcity–that Gen Z Americans have turned toward imitating such cultural habits.

For one, Ackerman conveniently never discusses the racial projection at work, nor does it ever seem to occur to him that this is a form of culturalist Orientalism. It is, after all, hardly just a Chinese habit to take off shoes indoors. And one is hard pressed to find the connection between drinking hot water and remedies to stark socioeconomic inequality.

Indeed, it is not even as though the phenomenon of Chinamaxxing refers to Westerners deciding that they would prefer to see China’s system of economic governance in the West. 

Continue @ ESSF.

Western Left Campist Fantasy Of Egalitarian China

Barry Gilheany ✍ At 8.30pm on Sunday 12th April 2026 the poster boy for far right nationalist populists, and perhaps Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s greatest asset on the continent of Europe, Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party conceded defeat in the Hungarian general election to his opponent and formal colleague Peter Magyar and his centre-right Tisza party with 72 per cent of the votes counted (the total turnout was 78% an indication of the high stakes involved).

 While pre-election polls did show Tisza to have a comfortable double-digit lead in the polls, the impact of its victory feels no less seismic for that. For in a stunning inversion of the logic and patterns of Hungarian electoral outcomes since Viktor Orbán  returned to office in 2010 (he had been Prime Minister before between 1998 and 2002 when his party had governed democratically as a mainstream centre-right party but after 2002 he tacked sharply to the ethno-nationalist far right); Tisza has won a supermajority or two thirds of the 199 seats in the Hungarian Parliament – the same sort of margins that Fidesz routinely achieved in the “illiberal democracy” which Orbán went to such inordinate lengths to institutionalise. In an era where liberal democracy has widely perceived to be in retreat from the Triple P Virus of Populism, Polarisation and Post-Truth (its most significant capture being the United States of Trump 2.0), the removal of its most consequential figure in Europe has been welcomed euphorically by democrats and progressives across the continent (regardless of the ideological orientation of the victorious party).

Hungary has a population of less than 10 million and an economy that produces a modest 1.1% of the European Union’s GDP. But the election was a totemic crucible for two competing visions of not just Hungarian identity but that of Europe and the wider West. One was the vision of liberal democratic Europe exemplified by the EU with its core values of open societies, freedom of expression and acceptance of the rules and conventions of representative democracy. The other was the traditional conservative Christian Europe under the threat of, in the words of the US National Security Strategy, of “civilisational erasure” by mass immigration. For proponents of the latter, Viktor Orbán’s self-styled “Illiberal democracy” is its poster child with its defence of a Europe under alleged siege from without by interfering EU officials, hordes of mainly Muslim immigrants and the forces of Soros-backed globalism and within gender ideology and “far left,” woke ideology. Latterly another demon has been added to this list in the form of President Zelenskyy of Ukraine whose defensive war against Russian aggression Orban warned of Hungary being dragooned into. Hardly surprising that Orbán is Europe’s bridgehead for both Trump and Putin in that his conservative Christian nationalist ideology reflects the worldview of both aggrandising superpowers. Hardly surprising but so egregious in terms of the principle of the sovereignty of nations, that Trump has weighed in with encouragement on Truth Social for Hungarians to “Get out and vote for Orbán'' and that a day before the poll opened, he pledged to use “the full economic might” of the US to shore up the European economy. 

Also, with no hint of irony (a quality that is rapidly disappearing in our neo-Orwellian world), Vice President JD Vance on his trip to Budapest to “help” Orbán’s campaign accused Europe of meddling in the election and lambasted “Brussels bureaucrats” for destroying Hungary’s economy.[1] Other far right figures lined up to show solidarity with their ideological kin: Marine Le Pen, Georgia Meloni, Italian PM, Benjamin Netananyu, President Javier Milei of Argentina and Orbán’s neighbouring Eurosceptic and Putin ally, Robert Fico in Slovakia. More ominously, has been the spectre of Russian disinformation and possible false flag operations to assist their most pliant European leader. After Orbán  accused Ukraine of blowing up a pipeline to deprive Hungary of Russian energy and manipulate the election, a week before the election, rucksacks full of explosives were found near another pipeline in Serbia that transports Russian gas to Hungary. While the 4kg of explosives were not sufficient to cause major damage to the pipe, it had in the opinion of a former Ukrainian major general and munitions specialist “provocation” value for Orbán. Worse still, wiretapped phone calls published last week revealed that Hungary’s foreign minister promised to share confidential EU documents regarding Ukrainian accession with his Russian opposite number. Western intelligence sources told the Washington Post that Russia had floated the idea of staging an assassination attempt against Orbán to tilt the vote in his favour.[2]

The clarion calls of both leaders were indications that the stakes in this election could not have been higher. Magyar and his centre-right Tisza party, which according to most polls had a double-digit lead over Orban’s Fidesz party in the run up to the vote, were accused by Orban of “colluding” with foreign intelligence and threatening the ruling party’s supporters with violence. In response Magyar – a former Fidesz loyalist who left it two years ago, accusing it of corruption and propaganda, said in a social media post:

The ongoing election fraud carried out for months by Fidesz, along with criminal acts, intelligence operations, disinformation and fake news cannot change the fact that Tisza is going to win this election.[3]

So how did it get to this state? Why was Hungary standing at this particular threshold? One answer is provided by the democratic theories Steven Levitsky and Damiel Ziblatt who hold up Hungary as a textbook example of how democracies will die in the 21st century; not through coups, the violence of civil wars or insurgency, foreign invasion or the rise of a militia backed Hitler or Mussolini but through democratic backsliding over time. Surveying twenty-first century autocracies, Levitsky and Ziblatt find that most of them are built via lawfare or constitutional hardball. They write that democratic backsliding occurs gradually and stealthily, through a series of seemingly non-controversial enactments: new laws that are ostensibly designed to clean up elections, defeat corruption, or create a more efficient judiciary (the proposed restriction of jury trials in England and Wales may raise a red flag for this reason); court rulings that reinterpret existing laws; long-dormant laws that are conveniently rediscovered. Because such measures have the shroud of legality and do not attract serious dissent, it appears that little has changed. Parliament remains open and appears to function normally and so opposition to the government’s measures is easily shrugged off as alarmist. However, the terms of deliberation do shift over time almost without notice. Eventually, the cumulative effect of these apparently harmless and inconspicuous measures is to make the task of opposition to the government more difficult and thereby entrench the incumbents in power.[4]

Orbán’s assault on democracy was facilitated by a scandal involving his rivals in the Hungarian Socialist Party when a Socialist Prime Minister was caught on tape admitting that he had lied about the state of the economy. The party’s subsequent collapse allowed Fidesz to score a landslide victory in the 2010 election; a landslide enabled by Hungary’s “first past the post” electoral system, which turned 53 percent of the vote into a two-thirds parliamentary majority. 

Orbán then went about deploying his parliamentary supermajority to disadvantage his opponents (another cautionary tale for other countries like Britain with winner-take-all voting systems). He rewrote the Constitution to allow the ruling party to unilaterally appoint justices of the Constitutional Court, replacing the previous judicial selection mechanism whereby the justices were selected by a parliamentary committee comprising representatives from all the political parties. Another constitutional amendment expanded the Constitutional Court from eleven to fifteen, creating four vacancies for Fidesz with allies. Then a law requiring Supreme Court presidents to have at least five years judicial experience in Hungary forced the existing President, Andras Baka, to stand down as he did not have that requisite period of service in Hungary but had served seventeen years on the European Court of Human Rights which made him an obvious and high-profile target for lawfare. But Fidesz went even further as Parliament proceeded to pass a law lowering the retirement age for judges from seventy to sixty-two and so enforcing the retirement of 274 judges. Although the law was later repealed under pressure from the European Union, many of the retirees did not return to their posts. As a former Constitutional Court justice put it, Orbán had pulled off “a constitutional coup … [under] the cover of constitutionally, with constitutional means.”[5] (An example maybe of why a written constitution may not be the exact panacea for countries like the UK without one).

Orbán also waged lawfare on the media by making public television a propaganda arm of government and by its capture of private media. As part of a “restructuring” process, Fidesz officials dismissed more than a thousand public media employees, including dozens of respected professional journalists and editors. These positions were filled by political loyalists, and public media coverage grew blatantly partisan. Regarding the private media, the Fidesz government worked behind the scenes to assist Orbán’s business cronies in the buying of major media outlets or to gain controlling shares in parent companies that owned independent media outlets. Pressure would then be applied to these independent media to self-censor or, in a few cases, or simply shut down. 

In 2016, Hungary’s largest opposition newspaper, Nepszabadsag, was suddenly closed down by its own corporate owners, not the government. The few remaining independent outlets were hedged in by a variety of restrictive measures. A 2010 law forbade reporting that was “imbalanced”, “insulting” or contrary to “public morality”, with those fouling foul of the new law facing up fines of up to $900,000. A Media Council, packed with Fidesz loyalists, was set up to enforce the law and dozens of media organisations has hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines imposed on them. The Media Council also denied licenses to independent media on the most tedious of technical grounds such as failing to fill out forms correctly. These hardball measures had the desired effect with one study finding that 90 percent of Hungarian media was in the hands of the Orbán government or its private sector allies by 2017. Some 80 percent of Hungarian television viewers and radio listeners received only information provided by the government or its supporters.[6]

Lastly, the Orbán government used constitutional hardball in the most crucial and consequential arena of all – the electoral field of competition. First, it packed the Electoral Commission, which prior to 2010 was appointed via multiparty consensus. Five of the ten seats were filled by delegates of each of the largest parties in parliament, while the other five were filled by mutual agreement between the government and the opposition to guarantee that no single party would control the electoral process. Fidesz discontinued this practice and replaced all five nondelegate seats with party loyalists. Then, in a manner reminiscent of the ‘packing and cracking’ and gerrymandering practices associated with Jim Crow US Deep South and Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972, the packed Electoral Commission proceeded to rig parliamentary electoral districts to overrepresent Fidesz’s rural strongholds and underrepresent the opposition’s urban redoubts. On top of this, the government banned the use of campaign advertisements in commercial media which severely impacted on the opposition’s ability to reach voters because of the pro-Fidesz bias of the public and private media.[7]

In terms of remaking Hungary in his own image, then Orbán’s lawfare paid dividends. In the 2014 election, Fidesz lost 600,000 votes relative to 2010; its share of the popular vote fell from 53 percent to 45 percent but retained its two thirds control of parliament. It repeated the feat in 2018 and 2022 winning two-thirds of parliament with less than half of the popular vote. By breaking the oracle in the way they have this time round, Peter Magyar and his Tisza party have certainly overcome the emerging conventional wisdom that Orbán “cannot be defeated under ‘normal’ circumstances.”[8]

Viktor Orbán’s long electoral dictatorship represents the mainstreaming of ideas that had remained hidden on the margins of far-right thought including the Great Replacement Theory, pronatalism and the rolling back of LGTB+ and gender-based rights. Orbán’s first victory in 2010, along with Marine Le Pen’s takeover and expansion of her father’s party the following year presaged the ascension of great replacement parties across Europe. During a radio interview in March 2018, Orban proclaimed:

Hungarians are an endangered species… I think there are many people who would like to see the end of Christian Europe, and they believe that if they replace its cultural topsoil … this will make the continent a better place. We utterly reject this.[9]

Orbán became an increasingly influential figure in pan-Conservative circles through his embrace of Great Replacement and his involvement with the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). At CPAC Hungary in 2022, he welcomed to Budapest such Alt-Right luminaries as Austria ‘s Freedom Party chair Herbert Kickl, Spain’s Vox president Santiago Abascal and American Conservative Union (ACU) chair Matt Sclapp. The increasingly influential talk show host Tucker Carlson and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage gave virtual addresses. A few days before CPAC Hungary, at his official inauguration of a new session of the Hungarian Parliament, he condemned the “suicidality” of Western values in Western countries:

One such suicide attempt is the great population replacement programme, which seeks to replace the missing European Christian children with migrants, with adults arriving from other civilisations. [10]

 - articulating a central credo of and mission statement of the contemporary populist nationalist far right.

Another cornerstone of Orbán’s rule was an obsession with the supposed evils of gender ideology. In 2020 his government banned same-sex couples from adopting children and banned transgendered Hungarians from legally changing their gender identity. No longer able to mobilise masses with fear of migration after closing the borders to refugees during Europe’ migrant crisis of 2015-16, Orbán, observed political scientist Andras Bozoki. Orbán resorted, in the manner of so many authoritarian leaders to an identity or out-group issue like radical homophobia. In 2021, Orbán’s government banned sharing with minors any education and media content pertaining to homosexuality or gender identity. Hungary’s ban became a model for Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law in 2022 which prohibited “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels.” [11]

And like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, Orbán framed day teachers – or teachers that assign literature on the gay experience – as paedophiles “grooming children.” In a particularly nauseating episode of hypocrisy, after Orbán’s government had established a searchable database of convicted paedophiles in Hungary, Hungarian President Katalin Novak, a handpicked appointee by Orbán, in April 2023 pardoned the former deputy director of a state-run children’s home who had been convicted of covering up sexual abuse of boys in his care. The pardon was signed off by Minister of Justice Judit Varga. In the wake of the public furore which followed the discovery of this scandal the following year, Orbán orchestrated distance and approved the resignations of Novak and Varga – the only two women in top posts in his government – who were inevitably hung out to dry. Also, Orbán’s Hungary ceased funding and accrediting gender studies degrees in 2018, effectively prohibiting Hungarian universities from teaching the discipline.[12]

Salient though the issues of race, pernicious conspiracy theories like Great Replacement and gender justice are to all democrats; it were the inter-related issues of decline of living standards and revulsion at the corruption and gilded lives of the ruling party’s elites which has driven Orban from and powered his opponent into power. When Hungary’s economy was growing, little attention was paid by vox populi to the withering away of checks and balances, the clampdown on LGTB events such as the Budapest Pride March, the closure of “Soros” funded NGOs and the attempts to restrict the curricula of Central University of Europe, Budapest founded by George Soros which led to its relocation to Vienna and the prohibition of the teaching of gender ideology. But as inflation soared after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and economic stagnation set in, rumblings began over the growing disconnect between Hungarians and its ruling class. It was against this backdrop that Peter Magyar began speaking out against his former associates in Fidesz’s inner circles. As he accused Orban’s party of styling itself as champions of Hungarians, while siphoning off state funds, corruption rapidly rose to the top of Hungarians’ list of concerns and Magyar’s hastily formed party ascended to the top of the polls.[13]

Symbolic of “the limitless corruption of the whole system,” in the words of the Hungarian independent MP Akos Hadhazy, was the drone footage of four zebras darting across the property - complete with manicured gardens, swimming pool, and underground garages - of the father of Orban to where Mr Hadhazy organised a series of “safari tours” last autumn in protest. Images of zebras were soon plastered over billboards; people posted videos of their treks to spot the animals, and plush toys were sold at protests as references to the zebras became part of the common currency of conversation.[14]

In the words of President Macron of France, Viktor Orbán’s defeat “is a victory for EU values.” It offers hope to democrats everywhere that the death of democracy 21st century style is not an inevitability. That Orbán has conceded defeat thus ensuring a proper transition or changing of the guard towards a new government is worthy of comment simply because of the violation of this basic democratic procedure by Donald Trump in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election and by dictators like the former President Maduro of Venezuela. While it is obviously very early days yet, initial soundings from the Peter Magyar in that he has pledged to change the Constitution to restrict the period of office for the Prime Minister to a maximum of two terms, to reset relations with the EU, restore an independent media and judiciary and to reform public procurement.

So to Viktor, the spoils of defeat.

References

[1] Isabel Coles. Budapest spring: Putin’s influence and European democracy at stake in Hungary poll. The Observer. 12 April 2026 pp.6-7

[2] Ibid, p.9

[3] Jon Henley and Jakub Krup. Hungary election rivals trade blows as polls point to defeat for Orbán. The Guardian. 11th April 2026 p.26

[4] Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt (2023). The Tyranny of the Minority. How to reverse an authoritarian turn and forge a democracy for all. London: Viking p.59

[5] Ibid, pp.60-61

[6] Ibid, pp.62-63

[7] Ibid, pp.63-64

[8] Ibid, p.64

[9] Ibram X. Kendi (2026). Chain of Ideas. Great Replacement Theory and the Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. London: Bodley Head p.74

[10] Ibid, p.277

[11] Ibid, pp.148-49

[12] Ibid. p.149

[13] Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi. The Saturday Read. Is this the end of Viktor Orban’s rule? The Guardian. 11th April 2026 pp.37-39

[14] Ibid, p.37

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Hungary For Change 🪶 Victor Orban Is Evicted From Power

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