Russian Influence and Propaganda in Anglosphere – GOP Republicans, UK Conservatives, Media and Think Tanks

Analysis via Rolling Stone article on GOP Representatives being informed by and using Russian talking points e.g. to denigrate Ukraine, EU European Union, the west and liberal democracy.

However, this assumes that the same GOP representatives have always been informed well, while avoiding media, influencers, Christian groups and think tanks?

One would argue that no man or woman is an island, let alone purely objective and original as most of our knowledge is gained from media, especially in US and Anglosphere, that is informed by Atlas – Koch Network think tanks, Murdoch led right wing media e.g. Fox News and influencers, while many Christian groups have had long term links with Russia from Soviet times (and influence operations?).

Further, not only is there the shared interest including fossil fuels, nationalism, Christianity, traditional values and autocracy, but deep seated antipathy towards the EU European Union’s minimum standards on labour, consumer protections, taxes, anti-laundering measures, environment, transition to renewable energy sources, liberal democracy, diversity and empowered citizens; see Brexit.

However, many claim that maybe these Anglosphere players had been compromised in past decades (without realising) by Russian influence e.g. UK ‘Conservatives for Russia’, but now being ‘wedged’ into silence or blocking e.g. aid to Ukraine?

‘Rolling Stone:

GOP Rep. Turner: Republicans Have ‘Uttered’ Russian Propaganda ‘on the House Floor’

The congressman said it is “absolutely true” that Russia’s anti-Ukraine messaging has “infected” his party’s base

BY PETER WADE

Republican Rep. Mike Turner accused some of his colleagues of having “uttered” Russian propaganda “on the House floor” amid Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine.

“We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” the chair of the House Intelligence Committee told Jake Tapper in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

Turner’s comments back an earlier assertion by fellow Republican and chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul, who told Puck News last week, “I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

McCaul blamed conservative media outlets for pushing Russian propaganda, including “nighttime entertainment shows” that spew “identical” talking points being used by Russian state media. He mentioned “these people that read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda” and said it was “obvious” which of his GOP colleagues had fallen for it. That’s when McCaul’s staff insisted the conversation be moved off the record.

“I mean, there are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which, of course, it is not,” Turner said Sunday. “Vladimir Putin having made it very clear, both publicly and to his own population, that his view is that this is a conflict of a much broader claim of Russia to Eastern Europe, including claiming all of Ukraine territory as Russia’s.”

“To the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner added.

Republican members of the House, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have recently opposed any additional aid to Ukraine. Greene has threatened to hold a vote to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson if he brings Ukraine aid to a floor vote. Turner said he doesn’t see “any risk” that Johnson will be ousted.’

Bill Kristol on Koch Network’s Heritage Foundation and Hungarian PM Orban:

For more articles and blogs on Conservative, Evangelical Christianity, Koch Network, Media, Political Strategy and Russia click through

Brexit and UK Political Interference by Putin, Russia and Anglo Conservative Allies

Posted on March 12, 2024

Still, there is discussion and analysis of Brexit versus the EU and Trump versus Biden’s Democrat administration, with accusations and allegations being made against Conservative MPs, Ministers, some Labour, media, Anglo right wing grifters, US fossil fueled Atlas – Koch Network think tanks at Tufton, related nativist Tanton Network and Russians, including FSB, diplomats, media and oligarch types.

Radical Right in the West – Fossil Fuel Atlas Koch Network – Nativist Tanton Network – Murdoch Media – Putin’s Russia – Brexit – Trump

Posted on March 6, 2024

Radical right in Anglosphere and Europe is cited here by Scott in Politico, including the ‘great replacement’ and Renaud Camus, climate science and Covid 19 scepticism. 

Symptoms of fossil fuels, oligarchs and <1% supporting corrupt nativist authoritarianism found around (mostly) right wing parties with ageing and low info constituents, informed by talking points prompted by mainstream media, social media and influencers.

Putin’s Russian Led Corruption of Anglosphere and European Radical Right, Conservatives and Christians

Posted on March 4, 2024

Some years ago Putin and Russia attracted much attention and sympathy from Anglo and European ultra conservative Christians, radical right and free market libertarians for Russia’s corrupt nativist authoritarianism with antipathy towards liberal democracy, the EU and open society.

These phenomena can be observed through visitors and liaisons, but more so by shared talking points and values.  These include family values, pro-life, Christianity, patriarchy, misogyny, white supremacy, traditionalism, dominionism, Evangelicals, anti-LGBT, anti-woke,  anti-elite, anti-gay marriage, traditional wives etc. and corruption, promoted by right wing parties, media, ultra conservative influencers, think tanks and NGOs.

Alexander Downer – Donald Trump aide George Papadopoulos – Russian Influence?

Posted on March 3, 2024

Alexander Downer, former Australian Foreign Minister in Conservative LNP coalition, Australia’s UK High Commissioner till 2018, visitor to Koch Network Heritage Foundation linked Hungarian Danube Institute (with former PM, now GWPF, UK Trade Advisor and Murdochs’ new Fox Board member Tony Abbott), and source for claims by Trump related people of DNC emails stolen by Russians i.e. George Papadopoulos.

‘Just a diplomat doing his job? A new book puts the spotlight back on Australia, Russia and interference in the US election.’

Historical Influence and Links Between Russia and the US Christian Right

Posted on November 6, 2023

We observe in the Anglosphere resurgence in conservative Christian nationalism of the right, becoming a central issue in ageing electorates, more in the US, Russia and Central Europe; both an electoral and policy strategy, plus supporting beliefs.

Some of the Anglo links are former Australian PM and now UK Trade Advisor Tony Abbott with the ADF Alliance Defending Freedom, Donald Trump gaining support of Evangelical and ‘pro-life’ Christians, the fossil fueled Atlas or Koch Network and their influence on the conservative Christian CNP Council for National Policy, Koch influenced Federalist Society promoting ‘pro-life’ choices for SCOTUS on Roe vs. Wade, then sharing similar values with Orban et al. in Central Europe, and Putin in Russia too?

Nigel Farage – Julian Assange – Wikileaks – Trump Campaign – Russian Influence

Posted on November 2, 2023

In the Anglosphere there is still much confusion around Assange, Wikileaks, stolen DNC emails, Russian influence, Russia Report, Mueller Report, Trump campaign, Murdoch’s Fox News, Nigel Farage, Roger Stone, Cambridge Analytica, Tufton St. think tanks linked to Atlas or Koch Network, Steve Bannon  and right wing grifters, out to defeat Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Presidential Campaign in 2016.

Russia and Anglosphere – Conservatives and Oligarchs – War vs EU and Future

Posted on July 26, 2023

Very good insight into and overview of Putin’s Russia and the ‘west’ including the Anglosphere from Alexander Etkin (CEU Wien) in Russia’s War Against Modernity.

Following are significant excerpts from Etkind’s analysis from reviewer at Inside Story (Australia) Jon Richardson, on how it endeavours to explain Russia, and one would add many other nations too, mirroring the radical right or corrupt nativist authoritarians with support from fossil fuels & industry oligarchs, consolidated right wing media, think tanks and leveraging ageing electorates.

Conservative Christian CNP – Council for National Policy in US – Influence in UK, Russia and Europe

Posted on July 3, 2023

Good overview from Tamsin Shaw through ByLine Times of how the US and UK politics, funding, networking and campaigning, crosses over with various oligarchs, groups and nations, of dubious outlook.

Influence of Koch Network’s faux libertarian or free market think tanks, joined with nativism of Tanton Network faux environmentalism, media cartels led by Murdoch et al including Musk, Christian Conservatives and influencers, on latter the Council for National Policy.

Russia Report – Anglo Conservatives Compromised by Russian Interference on EU and Brexit

Posted on June 22, 2023

Return to questions over the U.K. Russia Report, former PM Johnson, Brexit, Conservative government, Russian oligarchs and influence on elections including the EU referendum..

Written by Peter Jukes and originally published January 2023 by ByLine Times, asking questions that are not only unresolved, but actively avoided by the Tories, media and supporters for the advantage of Putin’s Russia and oligarchs, both east and west?

Lobbyists and Media – Push Politicians to Right – But Not Voters?

Interesting article from The Conversation ‘Politicians believe voters to be more conservative than they really are’ analysing the mismatch between media and politicians versus the electorate and society at large in Europe, US and Australia, why?

‘on a majority of issues, politicians consistently overestimate the share of citizens who hold right-wing views.  Importantly, politicians’ overestimation of how many citizens hold right-wing views is consistent across the ideological spectrum. Politicians hold a conservative bias regardless of whether they represent left- or right-wing parties’

According to the researchers, they suggest much has to do with right wing voters, even though a minority, are more active and have a higher profile, in addition to the impact of lobbyists and one would suggest, oligarch funded right wing ‘libertarian’ think tanks, especially refined architecture of influence in the US. 

The Anglosphere of US, UK and Australia, have become stark in how right wing or ultra conservative and nativism infected politics, economics and society, targeting and developing above median age right wing voters. This has been achieved by supposed free market think tanks and the fossil fueled Koch Network including CNP Council for National Policy, Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute and ‘bill mill’ ALEC American Legislative Exchange Council. 

Further, this is supported by white nativism masquerading as environmental solutions of the Tanton Network, which shares Koch Donors Network, funded by but deflecting from fossil fuels, highlighting ‘immigrants’ and ‘population growth’ as environmental issues, then Murdoch led media ecosystem spreads, repeats and reinforces the negative talking points, informed by GOP pollsters and lobbyists. 

In the UK the same elements exist with both Tanton and Koch Network NGO or charities sharing Tufton St., while Murdoch et al. are central in media to do the communications; ditto Australia.

From The Conversation:

‘Politicians believe voters to be more conservative than they really are

In Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won a district council election for the first time on Monday. Robert Sesselmann’s victory as district administrator – the equivalent of a mayor – in the Eastern town of Sonneberg comes only a day after Greece’s conservatives clinched an outright majority in the country’s parliamentary polls, topping left-wing parties Syriza and Pasok. Meanwhile, the Spanish left is also bracing for an early general election on 23 July, after losing to the Spanish conservative Partido Popular (PP) and far-right Vox parties in May.

Such developments might send a signal to European politicians to lean further to the right in a scramble to save votes. Yet our latest research, published this month, shows that politicians’ perceptions may not actually reflect voters’ true interests and opinions. Worse still: it appears to be an error that many other politicians have already made.

866 officials surveyed

In an influential 2018 study, David Broockman and Christopher Skovron showed that US politicians overestimated the share of citizens who held conservative views. On questions related to state intervention in the economy, gun control, immigration, or abortion, the majority of both Republicans and Democratic representatives surveyed believed that a greater share of citizens supported right-wing policies than what public-opinion data revealed.

Our findings are clear and straightforward. In all four countries, and on a majority of issues, politicians consistently overestimate the share of citizens who hold right-wing views.  Importantly, politicians’ overestimation of how many citizens hold right-wing views is consistent across the ideological spectrum. Politicians hold a conservative bias regardless of whether they represent left- or right-wing parties.

The result of lobbying?

The big question is why politicians perceive public opinion to be more right-wing than it truly is. One explanation provided by Broockman and Skovron for the United States was that right-wing activists are more visible and tend to contact their politicians more often, skewing representatives’ information environment to the right. We tested this explanation in our studied countries, but could not find evidence to support it. The right-wing citizens in our sample are not more politically active, and therefore visible, than their left-wing counterparts. Yet the idea that politicians’ information environment might be skewed to the right can find support in other work.

Earlier research has shown that politicians tend to receive disproportionally right-skewed information from business interest groups. Social media, which politicians use more and more, also tends to be dominated by conservative views, and as politicians spend more time online, and their news media diet is growingly filtered through social media feeds that create interactions and feedback skewed to the right, their views may be accordingly distorted. It has also been shown that politicians tend to pay more attention to the policy preferences of more affluent and educated citizens, and those citizens vote more often and hold more often right-wing views, at least on economic issues.

A threat to representative democracy

Irrespective of the sources of the conservative bias, the fact that it is persistently present in a variety of different democratic systems has major implications for the well-functioning of representative democracy. Representative democracy builds upon the idea that elected politicians are responsive to citizens, meaning that they by and large attempt to promote policy initiatives that are in line with people’s preferences. If politicians’ ideas of what the public thinks – let alone their own party’s voters – are systematically biased toward one ideological side, then the political representation chain is weakened. Politicians may erroneously pursue right-wing policies that do not in fact have the popular support, and may refrain from working to advance (incorrectly perceived) progressive goals. 

But if citizens are less conservative than what politicians perceive them to be, the supply side of policy is at risk of being consistently suboptimal and may have broader, system-wide implications such as growing disaffection with democracy and democratic institutions.The recent social unrest in France regarding raising legal pension age might be an example of a policy debate in which governments perceive public opinion leaning more to the right than it actually is.

The situation is not without hope, however, and access to accurate information seems to play an important role. A 2020 study in Switzerland has shown that a sustained use of direct democracy might help politicians better understand public opinion. In the same logic, a recent study of US elected officials show that they tend to misperceive support for politically motivated violence among their supporters. But when exposed to reliable and accurate information, they update and correct their (mis) perceptions. Building on such studies, we believe that more work needs to be done both to understand the sources and prevalence of conservative bias, and to identify additional ways of offsetting it.

For more related blogs on Ageing Democracy, Australian Politics, Conservative, Demography, EU European Union, Immigration, Koch Network, Media, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Tanton Network and Younger Generations:

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

The Anglosphere Faux or Fake Left and Centre Heading to the Populist Right?

Growth of Conservative Hard Right Wing or Nativist Authoritarian Regimes

Strange Conservative Political Links – The Anglosphere, Hungary and Russia

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Immigration Restriction – Population Control – Tanton Network

Geopolitics – Horseshoe Theory – Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Anglosphere European Far Right and Left

Interesting article from Foreign Policy titled ‘Why America’s Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine’ from mid 2022 discussing ‘Horseshoe Theory’ which is apparent not just in the US but the Anglosphere and Europe, especially ageing left and far right conservatives who call for appeasement.

On one hand we have those on the right who are complicit or have been compromised including GOP, Trump, Tucker Carlson, FoxNews, UKIP, Nigel Farage, alt right grifters, UK Conservatives, Hungarian PM Orban, Serbia’s Vucic etc. and Koch Network linked think tanks. 

Then on the (US style) ‘left’ we have supposed geopolitical experts, intellectuals or academics of the ageing left calling for appeasement under the guise of abstract ideological arguments, ignorance of events on the ground and calls for negotiation.  These include Kissinger & Chomsky, Mearsheimer, Sachs, Ritter et al., but behind all these are right wing think tanks, networks or links including Nixon-Koch, Charles Koch, Rockefeller Foundation, Rand Paul Institute etc.?

What are some of the commonalities or shared interests? Antipathy towards the EU European Union & pro Brexit, tepid on commitment to NATO, pro fossil fuels, anti-woke, anti-LGBT, pro Christian, anti-immigrant, ‘great replacement’, patriarchy, corruption, low or no regulation, 0.1% given privileges and protection? 

From Foreign Policy:

‘Why America’s Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine

The discourse surrounding Russia’s war on Ukraine has created strange bedfellows.

By Jan Dutkiewicz, a policy fellow at the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard Law School, and Dominik Stecuła, an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University.

JULY 4, 2022,

Since Russia attacked Ukraine, unprovoked, on Feb. 24, the discourse surrounding the war that has emerged in the United States has created strange bedfellows. Although the majority of the American public, led by U.S. President Joe Biden, have thrown their support behind Ukraine, many on the left and right alike have rushed to defend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime or, at the very least, have urged the United States not to intervene in Ukraine’s defense.

Tucker Carlson, the face of Fox News and host of the most popular show on cable news in the United States, has been spouting pro-Kremlin talking points for months (and is frequently rebroadcasted on Russian state television). Other right-wing figures regularly spew out anti-Ukrainian disinformation and rail against sending heavy weapons to the country.

Meanwhile, the luminary of the American intellectual left, Noam Chomsky, has invoked former U.S. President Donald Trump as a model of level-headed geopolitical statesmanship for his opposition to arming Ukraine. Left-wing sources—such as Jacobin, New Left Review, and Democracy Now!—have hewed to a party line that blames NATO expansion for Russia’s invasion and opposes military aid to Ukraine.

Online, armies of left- and right-wing accounts find fault with Ukraine’s politics, policies, and president. In Congress, seven of the most fervent conservative Trump supporters voted alongside progressive champions Reps. Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush against banning Russian fossil fuels; even more surprisingly, Omar and Bush are joined by so-called squad members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib as well as the far-right fringe of the Republican Party in opposing the U.S. government seizing Russian oligarchs’ assets.

All of these developments highlight a bizarre alliance between the two ends of the political spectrum. The question is: Why?

What we seem to be seeing is a modern-day version of the horseshoe theory of politics, where the far left and far right find themselves in uncanny alignment. Although historically maligned, the theory seems to hold remarkably well when it comes to U.S. opinion on the Russia-Ukraine war. This doesn’t have much to do with ideological symmetry, however, or even Russia or Ukraine, for that matter. Rather, it has everything to do with the fraught state of U.S. politics, where relying on simple notions of “left” and “right” or “conservative” and “progressive” no longer serves a useful heuristic for understanding political developments.

The horseshoe theory of politics was introduced by French philosopher Jean-Pierre Faye, who believed that the political ideological spectrum—traditionally construed as a linear progression from some form of socialism or democratic collectivism through a bourgeois-liberal center and on to some form of totalitarianism or fascism—was not a straight line between ever-more-distant political positions but rather something like a horseshoe, with the extremes bending almost magnetically into conjunction with each other.

Based on his observation of the alignment of fascist and communist parties in early 1930s German domestic politics and then on the Nazi-Soviet alignment in the international sphere, perhaps best embodied by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, he believed that the political extremes have much more in common than a traditional interpretation of the political spectrum might suggest….

…Since Russia invaded Ukraine this year, the vast majority of Americans from both parties have supported the U.S. government’s position: They support providing military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and surprisingly, there is even considerable bipartisan support for welcoming Ukrainian refugees to the United States. But Russia has found vocal allies too.

The close ideological and financial relationship between many far-right European parties and the Kremlin is hardly a secret, making their support for Putin’s genocidal campaign par for the course. But considerable elements of the American right, including members of the Republican Party, have openly sided with Russia since the invasion.

The GOP has historically wielded its anti-Soviet (pre-1989) and anti-Russian (post-1989) position to great political effect. This is, after all, the party of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” In 2012, then-GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Russia the United States’ primary geopolitical foe and a country that “always stands up for the world’s worst actors.” Fast forward to 2022, and Republicans—including Trump; his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; (soon to be former) Rep. Madison Cawthorn; Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance; Fox News personalities, such as Laura Ingraham; and conservative influencers, such as Candace Owens—have all broken from the party line to heap scorn on Ukraine and U.S. efforts to assist it.

A number of tropes that recur in this right-wing critique is the claim that NATO expansion forced Putin’s hand and led to the invasion as well as that money spent on military aid to Ukraine would be better spent on domestic issues, even if those issues include the continued militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, as suggested by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley….

…When it comes to Ukraine, many tankies have embraced a pro-Moscow position and parroted Kremlin talking points, perhaps failing to disambiguate between Russia, an authoritarian capitalist-oligarchic state, and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, an authoritarian communist state. These positions include the false claim that Ukraine’s 2014 Euromaidan protest movement was a U.S.-backed coup, which has been shared directly by elected officials like DSA-backed New York City council member Kristin Richardson Jordan in the form of links to online tankie disinformation. But similar claims have also been made by QAnon-boosting GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and seemingly serious leading scholars, including Chomsky and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer….

….Mearsheimer’s work is instructive here. A highly influential scholar of international relations, Mearsheimer is known as one of the leading proponents of the “offensive realism” school of analysis of world affairs. This school argues that states, especially great powers, will act rationally to maximize their military power in an anarchic world system, meaning that they are likely to react violently to perceived threats to their security.

Mearsheimer’s most influential contribution to the debate about Ukraine—other than his musings that U.S. support for the 2014 Euromaidan protests constituted a coup—is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was directly caused by NATO’s expansion into Russia’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, including its overtures to Ukraine. According to offensive realist analysis, Russia’s attack heads off this U.S.-led expansion. Despite the fact that this theory has been widely challenged since the conflict’s first day, Mearsheimer’s explanation has traveled widely.

He has aired his ideas in a guest column for the Economist and in an interview with the New Yorker, and his work has been mentioned by critics of U.S. policy in Ukraine from think tanks such as the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, whose funding sources include both billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Koch Foundation, and the Koch-funded and Sen. Rand Paul-backed Defense Priorities as well as leftist publications, such as the openly socialist Monthly Review, the tweedy Current Affairs, and the trusty social democratic standby the Nation. Mearsheimer has also been retweeted by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs…

….To see leftists conceding that Kissinger has a point and Republicans handing it to Chomsky has been quite something. But, the argument goes, if Chomsky and Kissinger (and Mearsheimer) agree, then they must be right. But they’re not. Putin said so himself when he recently compared himself to Peter the Great, claiming Russia’s right to expand into its previous colonies and dropping the pretense that Western provocations had much to do with his decision to invade Ukraine…..

…For all their disparate political goals and motivations, what unites the far left and far right is their relationship to U.S. politics. What unites them is an opposition to what they perceive as the faults of the status quo, a distrust of the establishment, and crude anti-Americanism.

On the political right, the actions of legislators like Greene, Cawthorn, Rep. Paul Gosar, or Rep. Matt Gaetz—all of whom oppose U.S. support for Ukraine against Russia—seem to be driven by a profound dislike of the United States as an ethnically and racially diverse democracy, a country where Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, is the law of the land (at least, for now).

Many on the far right despise that reality and recognize the ideological proximity of their political goals to what they see as Putin’s accomplishments, including making life extremely difficult for Russia’s LGBTQ community. His general anti-wokeness has been lauded by former Trump advisor and current MAGA influencer Steve Bannon. The Russian propaganda machine has been remarkably well versed in the language of U.S. culture wars, and there is a widespread perception that Putin and Russia are allies to the MAGA wing of the GOP on that culture war front….’

More blog and articles click through Koch Network, Nationalism, Political Strategy & Russia.

Russian Brexit Coup by Putin and Compromised British Conservatives

US or UK Sanctions on Murdoch’s Fox News Support for Putin’s Russia?

Koch Industries – Putin – Russia – Ukraine – Koch Network – Think Tanks

Putin’s Russia – Dugin – Alt Right – White Christian Nationalism – the Anglosphere and Europe

Neo Conservative Rasputins? Putin and Dugin – Trump and Bannon – Johnson, Brexit and Cummings

Growth of Conservative Hard Right Wing or Nativist Authoritarian Regimes

Strange Conservative Political Links – The Anglosphere, Hungary and Russia

Strange Conservative Political Links – The Anglosphere, Hungary and Russia

Another informed article from Szabolc Panyi in ByLine Times titled ‘Strange Allies Hungary, Russia & the UK’ highlighting the links of Anglosphere conservatives on the right including visitors, fellows and politicians presenting at or liaising with their counterparts, think tanks and institutes.

Not only are there allegations and warnings about links to Putin’s Russia e.g. US conservative Anne Applebaum warned visiting fellows of the Danube Institute after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and before the Hungarian elections, funded by the Hungarian government (3 April 2022, Twitter), but appear to be links with Koch Network think tanks and media.  The latter not only involves Murdoch’s FoxNews, Tucker Carlson, CPAC, Steve Bannon, Nigel Farage et al., but links to RT and (K)GB News (supported by the Legatum Institute in Dubai?).

Further, Australian conservatives linked to the Danube Institute and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium include former PM Tony Abbott, his advisor former Ambassador to Hungary Mark Higgie, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and NewsCorp commentator Greg Sheridan.  

The common link between the former conservative politicians are ‘libertarian’ Koch Network think tanks in Australia, especially the IPA Institute of Public Affairs which is allegedly funded by a mining oligarch, and promotes climate science denial.  Further, all are indirectly supported or platformed by Australia’s right wing media oligopoly, led by Murdoch’s NewsCorp and also ideological contributions from The Spectator Australia, seem to be promoting Tanton Network nativism, ‘great replacement’, immigration restrictions and eugenics, at least of class. 

There appears to be many shared interests with Anglosphere networks with Orban and Putin including climate science denial, anti-EU, equivocal on NATO, authoritarianism, media control, hobbling education, encouraging patriarchy, ‘family values’ and of late complaints, of not just ‘woke’ but miscegenation due to immigration and refugees.

Strange Allies Hungary, Russia & the UK

Szabolcs Panyi  18 October 2022

Szabolcs Panyi looks at the affinities between British Conservatives and Viktor Orbán in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

On the eve of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was scheduled to be in Budapest. The trip was called off at the last minute – journalists were told on 23 February that a reception for Truss at the British Embassy had been cancelled.

In recent years, senior members of most Western governments have tended to avoid Hungary’s capital, keen to side-step meetings with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. His tarnished reputation both as a pro-Kremlin strongman and an anti-migration populist had turned him into a black sheep of the European Union. 

The relationship was slightly different for the UK, however. Regardless of Orbán’s cosying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his theoretical ability to soften the EU’s position towards Brexit had made him an ally of Boris Johnson’s Government. 

When I ask British career civil servants about British-Hungarian relations, some usually signal their personal dismay – labelling it a ”pragmatic relationship”. In May 2021, when Johnson was criticised for hosting an increasingly isolated Orbán – criticism which, to some extent, even Downing Street shared – Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng defended the meeting as “completely reasonable”. He said UK leaders “have to speak to all sorts of people, all sorts of leaders across the world whose values we don’t necessarily share.”

At the heart of this pragmatic relationship lies a deep contradiction. 

Orbán’s attacks on the EU and its institutions have been fully in line with the usual Brexiteer scapegoating of Brussels. But the Hungarian Prime Minister’s pro-Russian and pro-Beijing policies are clearly working against the UK’s security and foreign policy interests. 

This hasn’t prevented a string of consecutive Conservative Governments from trying to court Orbán. What remains unclear, however, is what that courting has actually achieved.

However, Hungary’s NATO loyalty is under much greater scrutiny since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

At the start of the war, Orbán’s Government loudly opposed any kind of military support for Ukraine. Budapest not only does not provide Kyiv with any kind of arms or military equipment, the country has even banned weapons transfers through its territory to Ukraine.

And while almost every European leader has visited Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv at least once, Orbán not only stayed away, he even listed the Ukrainian President as one of his ”opponents” following the Hungary’s April elections.

Hungary initially offered support on Russian sanctions. But such support soon petered out. Threatening to veto the European Union’s sixth sanctions package, Orbán managed to negotiate a full exemption for Hungary from the bloc’s oil embargo against Russia. Official explanation was that the Hungarian economy just cannot do without Russian oil. 

Orbán then threatened to sink the whole sanctions package again. This time, he wanted to save Patriarch Kirill – the KGB-linked, warmongering head of Russia’s Orthodox Church – from being sanctioned with an asset freeze and travel ban. He succeeded. Early last month, his successes emboldened Hungary to attempt to lift sanctions on three Russian oligarchs, including Alisher Usmanov, Arsenal FC’s former shareholder.

Hungary is now openly questioning the rationale of any kind of sanctions against Moscow, claiming the moves have backfired and are hurting the European economy. While other NATO countries have cut official ties with senior Kremlin officials, Orbán’s cabinet members are still meeting with Russian counterparts on a regular basis, whether it is about discussing gas deals with Gazprom or negotiating a nuclear power plant extension with Rosatom.

British Right-Wing Pundit Support

One would think that such moves from Hungary’s government would instantly trigger a wave of criticism from British right-wing pundits. These are, after all, the same people who praise the Conservatives for standing up to Putin. 

However, the Orbán Government has invested in winning over key figures in right-wing and alt-right circles in the UK in order to prevent hostile op-eds, TV and radio commentaries. 

The methods include lavish study trips, personal meetings with Hungarian Government figures, and offers of speaking fees and fellowships by government-organized non-governmental organizations (GONGOs). For many years now, self-proclaimed Thatcherites have come to Hungary to wine, dine and live on Hungarian taxpayer money without any remorse whatsoever. 

To name a few examples: former Thatcher policy writer and speechwriter John O’Sullivan is heading a taxpayer-backed Hungarian think-tank called the Danube Institute. Roger Scruton, the late Conservative philosopher has a small coffee shop chain named after him in Budapest.

Scruton’s close friend, Douglas Murray – who once met Orbán alongside former Trump advisor Stephen K. Bannon – is a regular guest at Government-sponsored events, and one of Orbán’s most influential British fans. Eurosceptic historian John Laughland, a regular fixture on Russia Today, is currently on a half a year, €10,000 per month fellowship at the state-funded Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest. Laughland was recently detained and questioned at Gatwick because of his Russian ties. 

The list goes on

Besides the reliable – and rarely disclosed – flow of Hungarian public money behind a large amount of Orbán apologism in British punditry, there are another common characteristics. They emphasise Orbán’s “anti-woke” and “anti-migration” ideas and present them as a role model to the UK. At the same time, his supporters never speak or outright downplay the importance of Hungary’s increasingly pro-Kremlin tendencies fully at odds with Great Britain. 

In that regard, Kwarteng’s defence of Orbán’s visit to Downing Street last year was in a way much more honest – he at least admitted the relationship was just about some common interests.’

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