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The ousting of Hungary’s Putin-friendly premier Viktor Orbán in Hungary – by Péter Magyar’s Pro-European Tisza party – has sent shockwaves through much of Britain’s anti-migrant commentariat.
Particularly affected is Reform UK’s defeated Gorton & Denton candidate, and GB News presenter Matthew Goodwin, who is listed as a visiting fellow for Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC).
MCC is the Hungarian state-funded body which has been branded a “propaganda unit” for the country’s ousted right-wing authoritarian leader and his Fidesz party.
Under Orbán, MCC was accused of morphing from a standard educational institution to an international mouthpiece, and his party transferred enormous sums to the organisation – assembling a cross-border network of EU-sceptic and Fidesz-friendly ‘fellows’.
“The combined endowment was valued at a whopping $1.7 billion: nearly 1% of Hungary’s Gross Domestic Product,” Democracy for Sale reported. MCC hosts regular conferences on how to ‘save’ the West from immigration and liberalism.
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Despite the defeat, Goodwin is scheduled to speak on a panel today (13th April) on “how mass migration is shaping the UK” at an MCC venue in Budapest. It may be the last such event for some time if Tisza, which secured a landslide in Sunday’s elections, overhauls the institution as planned.
As non-profit campaigners Good Law Project noted in February, visiting fellows at MCC are reportedly paid between €5,000 and €10,000 per month – “plus housing, office space, health insurance” and other expenses. Reform has denied Goodwin was paid €10,000 a month, though did not reveal the precise figure.
MCC is also a major funder of the UK registered charity Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation (RSLF) – named after the late conservative philosopher admired by Orbán and honoured by the state in “Scruton cafe§s” around the country.
It “received more than £512,500 from the Hungarian government since 2023 – over 90% of its total funding” according to Democracy for Sale, with speakers at its events typically aligning closely with Orbán’s anti-migrant conservative worldview.
Spectator editor and former minister Michael Gove and Reform UK’s policy chief Prof James Orr are trustees of RSLF. The charity’s funding may now be called into question, as it is likely to come under close scrutiny by Magyar’s new administration.
Don’t miss a story
Tisza’s Plans for MCC
The party’s manifesto stated: “We will investigate the corruption scandals and clear legal violations of recent years (e.g. long-term concessions, government propaganda spending…transactions of the MCC, support for pseudo-NGOs, Hatvanpuszta estate, castles, and land deals.”
It also pledged: “We will recover the state assets granted to the MCC and end the practice of political network-building with public funds.”
Tisza’s platform committed to “recover stolen public assets” handed to Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), adding that “under the guise of talent promotion [it] builds the political and ideological base of the ruling parties using public money.”
“Taxpayers’ funds must be spent exclusively on education, research, and genuine merit-based talent development.” Doing so would, Tisza pledged, “draw a clear line between education and propaganda.”
“The state must not maintain or finance any institution whose operation is determined by party-political objectives, loyalty expectations, or ideological selection. State-funded talent promotion must be open, pluralistic, and professionally accountable.”
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Goodwin’s Speeches
There is no suggestion of illegality on the parts of UK recipients of MCC’s largesse. Neither Gove nor Orr are paid as trustees of RSLF, according to the charity’s accounts. However, Goodwin’s receipt of funding from MCC, an organisation accused of being the international propaganda wing of Orbán’s Fidesz party, has been highlighted by Good Law Project as a foreign interference risk.
In December 2025, Goodwin gave a speech to MCC Brussels on “the revolution the elites never saw coming”. In it, he lambasted as “deeply concerning” the prospect that Britain’s “white British majority will officially become a minority among the under 40s” by 2063.
He also railed against Britain supposedly becoming more Muslim, claiming the Government had allowed in “nearly 200,000 unvetted illegal migrants, mostly from Islamic nations” and that “by the end of this century, 75 years from now, one in three of the under-40s in the United Kingdom will be following Islam.” It is almost impossible to project demographic trends for 75 years ahead.
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Goodwin also told the Orbán-controlled conference: “Power belongs with the people”. But by February 2026, he would go on to claim his loss in the Gorton & Denton by-election was caused by “woke progressives, sectarian voting and Islamists,” the latter of whom voted for a female Green party candidate standing for a party led by a gay Jewish man. GB News presenter Miriam Cates was also listed as a keynote speaker at the conference.
It is not known how much Goodwin has been paid for his MCC speeches or whether it falls within his existing expectations as a visiting fellow.
In another MCC speech on March 10th this year, this time in Budapest, state-dominated press there reported that Goodwin bemoaned the supposed collapse of Britain and a rise in the number of Muslims.
The speech was titled: “Reclaiming Power from Supranational Elites” and, according to the reports, saw him lash out at Government plans to tackle ‘anti-Muslim hostility’, alongside the appointment of a government ‘Islamophobia tsar’, “arguing that such measures risk restricting legitimate political discussion and further limiting freedom of expression.” The conference was dubbed “Reclaiming the West,” which is a consistent theme of Orbán and his party.
Questions for Goodwin
Byline Times put several questions to Goodwin: What conditions, if any, were attached to this foreign income? How does he square it with a supposed commitment to Britain’s ‘national sovereignty’? And was money a factor in Mr Goodwin’s praise of Hungary as a supposed haven with “no crime…no homeless people…no riots”?
Goodwin and Reform UK were contacted for comment, but did not respond. However, in February, Reform told Good Law Project that Goodwin was a visiting fellow at MCC for a “brief period” and has also served as a senior fellow at Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House.
“It is standard for academics to hold fellowship positions at other institutions around the world,” the Reform spokesperson told the authors, adding that the GB News presenter has given “paid talks to organisations around the world”.
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Reform reportedly denied that MCC paid Goodwin €10,000 a month and rejected any idea that MCC is “funded by money from Russia”.
Other Brits listed as current MCC visiting fellows include Simon Cottee, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kent, Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode, Senior Research Fellow, University of Buckingham, spiked-online launch editor Mick Hume (who now edits the European Conservative), Michael Severance, Senior Research Fellow for the Acton Institute, Nick Zangwill, Honorary Research Fellow at University College London, and Richard Werner, Professor at the University of Winchester.
Byline Times has asked Tisza if the new administration plans to review any contracts with visiting fellows following the party’s victory.
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