Democrats running for the Senate posted some massive fundraising hauls in the first quarter.

The most striking number so far came from Texas. James Talarico brought in an eye-popping $27 million over the past three months, his campaign announced Wednesday morning ahead of today’s Federal Election Commission deadline, including $10 million since he won his March 3 primary.

Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff raised more than $14 million in the first quarter, according to his campaign. In North Carolina, former Gov. Roy Cooper raised $13.8 million. In Alaska, former Rep. Mary Peltola brought in $8.9 million, while former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown raised $12.5 million in his comeback bid.

The hauls, several of which set records in their respective states, underscore how Democrats are feeling increasingly bullish about their ability to flip the Senate. While Democrats still face an uphill climb due to the red lean of many states on the Senate map, President Donald Trump’s tanking approval ratings and the unpopularity of the ongoing war in Iran has the party feeling optimistic ahead of the midterms.

Democrats facing competitive primaries did not report as strong numbers, as donors split among several candidates. In Michigan, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow brought in $3 million, slightly ahead of Abdul El-Sayed’s $2.2 million. Rep. Haley Stevens, the third candidate in the race, has not yet revealed her fundraising numbers ahead of the FEC deadline on Wednesday. Iowa’s two Democratic candidates, state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls, each raised $1.1 million in the past quarter.

Source link

On 14 April, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced that it had submitted its latest attempt at a ‘single-sex spaces’ code of practice to parliament. The news comes a year after the Supreme Court ruled that ‘woman’ is defined by sex-assigned-at-birth under the Equality Act.

Women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson subsequently announced that she will release the new code in May. Ostensibly, and quite conveniently, the latest delay is intended

The transphobic ‘rights watchdog’ was forced to redraft its previous guidance, which called to ban trans people from both spaces aligned with their gender and, sometimes, their sex.

Given its previous abortive attempts, the EHRC’s latest code looks likely to be another anti-trans shitshow.

EHRC: ‘a narrow set of comments’

On 14 April, EHRC chair Mary-Ann Stephenson announced that:

Progress is being made towards accurate and up-to-date guidance on the Equality Act 2010 being available to service providers, associations and those exercising public functions.

The UK government recently provided us with a narrow set of comments on the draft Code of Practice we submitted in September. Having considered this feedback alongside consultation responses and further legal analysis, we have made adjustments where they help the Code provide legally accurate, practical guidance that is useful to duty bearers.

That “narrow set of comments” presumably related to the ridiculous suggestion that service providers should guess at people’s trans status based on appearance and behavior. This was unworkable for a host of reasons, not least because there’s no legal way to establish whether or not an individual is trans.

Following the EHRC’s announcement, women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson said:

This government has always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex. The Supreme Court’s ruling last year brought clarity for women and service providers such as hospitals and refuges, and made clear that protections for trans people remain in the Equality Act.

That “based on biological sex” bit is a bare-faced lie. In fact, the Labour Manifesto previously pledged to make it easier to legally change one’s sex. The party quietly abandoned this promise because of pressure from the far right.

‘Getting it right’

Philipson continued:

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is the independent equality regulator and ensures compliance with the Equality Act 2010. Their Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations covers all nine protected characteristics and the steps service providers should take to comply with the law. We share the EHRC’s commitment to ensuring duty bearers have accurate and up-to-date guidance on the Equality Act 2010 including in the light of the recent Court rulings.

Those “recent court rulings” include a decision that it is still discriminatory to ban trans people from single-sex facilities aligned with their gender. The fact that the EHRC got this so badly wrong is also proof that Philipson’s claim that the original anti-trans ruling brought “clarity” is another lie.

The women’s minister concluded by adding that:

The government received the updated draft on 13 April. The Code will apply across Great Britain and as we are currently in the pre-election period for the devolved administrations, we are unable to make further announcements on this matter at this time. However, we are taking urgent action to meet our intention of laying the Code in May and as soon as practicable after the election period, for Parliamentary scrutiny.

We are getting it right, showing leadership by implementing the clarity the Supreme Court ruling delivers.

Before an election, ministers observe a ‘period of sensitivity‘. For the Scottish election, this began on 26 March. During this time, MPs should “carefully consider” any primary legislation relating to the devolved government. Further than this:

For Scotland and Wales it is not possible for the respective executives to seek their legislature’s consent for provisions in UK Government Bills that require Legislative Consent Motions during the election period as the legislatures will either be in recess or dissolved.

This is significant because the new code will have to be laid before parliament for 40 days before it becomes law. However, both MPs and Lords can prevent this by passing a motion to reject it.

Laughable claims of ‘clarity’

Beyond the stipulations of the period of sensitivity, the delay is highly convenient in a purely political sense. Namely, whatever Philipson actually comes out with, it’s likely to see her torn to shreds.

The deeply bigoted anti-trans pressure groups will be outraged that they’re not seeing the full bathroom ban they felt was coming. Meanwhile, queer and trans rights groups have been vocal about the fact that Philipson cannot possibly ‘get it right’, as she put it.

Alex Parmar-Yee, of the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, put it plainly:

The only workable solution is to protect the norm of trans-inclusive provision across the country, in line with international human rights standards and Labour’s own promises to the trans community.

Likewise, trans advocacy and education group TransActual stated that:

Bridget Phillipson’s claim that the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of sex in the Equality Act delivered ‘clarity’ is laughable. The ruling a year ago led to mass confusion, inspired disjointed and discriminatory policies, and created a workers rights crisis for trans people by causing trans people to be outed at work, with some prevented from doing their job at all. The ruling and the draft Code of Practice both inspired institutional and vigilante harassment of cis and trans people based on their perceived gender.

Jess O’Thomson, trans rights lead at the Good Law Project, said:

The EHRC has been gaslighting us for a year, insisting publicly and repeatedly that their legal analysis was unimpeachable. Now it’s clear that they got the law wrong, and they’ve been told to fix the guidance they tried to force through last year. It shouldn’t have taken this long for the EHRC to do its job.

For now, trans communities are faced with yet another long wait. The Commons will return after the State Opening of Parliament on 13 May. It will then break for recess on 21 May.

We don’t know what Philipson and the EHRC’s latest attempt will bring. Until the code is finally published, our place in society remains balanced on a knife edge.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Source link

We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI – prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

If you’re remotely interested in lip tints, listen up – because I’d bet my bottom dollar that I’ve found your new favourite.

K-beauty brand Laneige launched its Juice Pop Box Lip Tints in the UK in March, to a decent amount of fanfare online.

Well, I’m here to tell you that the hype is very much warranted.

I tried the shade Mocha Remix, a semi-sheer plummy brown. While at first it goes on quite thinly, looking a bit like a wine-stain (only more chic), if you layer it up, it soon builds to a much deeper colour.

Advertisement

This is ideal for me, since it means I can wear it differently depending on my mood.

Its staying power is seriously impressive – you can couple a few layers of it, eat a good meal, and forget about it for hours before you notice your lip colour hasn’t budged.

Unlike lots of other lip products I’ve tried in my time, you can apply it on the go without looking with total ease.

Aidan trying the Laniege tip tint

And what’s more, it feels super nourishing on the lips, thanks to the ‘Water-Oil Remix Technology’, polypeptide, and ceramides boosting the tint’s moisturising and firming formula.

Advertisement

My only minor critique is that, after spending most of the day wearing it, the colour tends to sink into the natural creases in my lips, and I like to add a quick layer of some clear lip balm to even things out again.

But all in all, between the lovely shade, the tint’s versatility, and how very easy it is to use, it’s an ideal option for everyday wear.

At £20, it’s not the most budget-friendly buy in the entire world, but it’s very far from the most expensive too.

Further to that, in my humble opinion, it’s worth every penny.

Advertisement

Source link

Unison’s general secretary called out the “broken” NHS funding review body and backed striking workers as part of a barnstorming welcome speech on the opening day of its annual health conference.

Speaking at the 2026 National Health Care Service Group Conference on Monday, Andrea Egan issued a call for international solidarity with racialised, LGBTQ+ and disabled colleagues, migrant workers and Palestinians under siege in Gaza.

Beyond this, she also warned the Labour government that “futile attempts to imitate the far-right must end”.

“There will be no out-Reforming of Reform,” Egan added.

Unison boss to NHS: ‘The whole country depends on you’

Beginning her welcome, Egan distinguished herself from some of her (*cough* more right-wing) predecessors as the “first lay member” to lead Unison. However, she quickly moved on to one of the event’s top priorities: NHS pay.

No politician denies that the whole country depends on you. That everyone turns to health workers in our moments of need. That the NHS turns on endless hours of self-sacrifice.

Yet your terms and conditions are still under attack.

Staff are our health service. To invest in you is to invest in the NHS. The notion we can restore our healthcare system without restoring your pay is nonsense. That’s why we have been unequivocal with the government: 3.3% is simply not good enough.

Egan blamed the “broken” Pay Review Body for the “insulting” 3.3% offer to NHS workers. Unison has already called out the offer as a real-terms pay cut that fails to keep up with the cost of living.

The general secretary added:

A united message to the government from Unison’s health conference should be: start treating NHS staff with the respect they deserve. And that means restoring pay. It means investing in workforce expansion. And it means picking morale up off the floor.

Do I smell a dig at Labour’s actively anti-union, pro-privatisation excuse for a healthcare secretary? Why, I think I do!

Egan slams Labour’s lack of progression

On that note, Egan also got in a swipe at the “no-longer new” Labour Party more generally.

Notably, Labour expelled Egan from the party back in 2022 for sharing ‘Socialist Appeal’ posts. As such, her palpable disappointment is more than understandable.

With Labour in power we hoped for a break with the failed ideas of the past. We were promised ‘the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation’ for public services…Well, where is it?

There are still far too many private healthcare vultures swooping down on our services, profiteering, extracting value – not delivering for patients or the public. Allowing that to continue is a political choice. A deeply irrational one at that.

Unison’s research has shown that, over the next few years, over 20,000 NHS jobs are under threat across England. The antidote to this peril, according to Egan, is proper public funding:

Our NHS can only be rebuilt on the foundation stone of its socialist-first principles, not by harking back to the failed, corrupt schemes of the mid-2000s.

How many more crumbling buildings and patients in corridors do we need to see before politicians stop spreading myths about inefficiencies and start getting serious about investment?

And, in light of those socialist-first principles, she also praised the health workers who’ve recently staged strikes. Egan acknowledged that industrial action isn’t taken “easily or lightly” when workers are “deeply committed” to their patients.

Anyone seeing another jab at Streeting or is it just me?

‘Stop the attacks on migrant workers’

Egan then pivoted to another conference priority: the rights of migrant workers. She urged members to get involved in the union’s fair visa campaign day of action on 24 April, and added:

I have taken our Unison message to Parliament, and directly to the Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street: stop the attacks on migrant workers. Now.

Our pressure, which began with migrant members organising a massive lobby of Parliament themselves late last year, is working. More and more MPs are realising what catastrophic damage the Home Office proposals would do to our public services and are speaking out against them.

As part and parcel of standing up for migrant workers, Unison is actively opposing Reform UK, such as through the Responding to Reform network.

Egan said:

Reform want to take away our rights, turn back the clock on equality, and parcel up our public services for their old pals in the square mile. We in Unison will not let it happen.

And, quite rightly, that includes the Farage-alike clowns in Labour:

We are also making clear to this Labour government that futile attempts to imitate the far-right must end. There will be no out-Reforming of Reform.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

‘I came to transform it’

Egan reiterated Unison’s opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran. Thus far, the illegal war has targeted at least 23 healthcare facilities in a matter of weeks.

Then she gave a shout out to the campaign of solidarity with Ukrainian healthcare workers, before moving to Palestine.

I want to acknowledge the Palestinian healthcare workers, almost two thousand of whom have been killed in Israel’s genocide. Medical Aid for Palestinians estimated last year that three healthcare workers were being murdered by Israel in Gaza every single day.

Finally, Egan ended with a note of solidarity and hope for change.

I did not come into this role to maintain the status quo; I came to transform it. I came into this role on a vote to be your voice. But comrades, I cannot do this alone. So today I ask you one question: are you ready to be part of the change and to be part of this journey?

The union is me, the union is you, the union is us. Together we can build a union that truly reflects the strength, resilience and leadership of our movement, a union that fights hard for justice and a union that wins.

I know we at the Canary have a (sometimes well-deserved) reputation as jaded cynics, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound like we might have a principled socialist at the head of the UK’s largest union again.

Featured image via Unison

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Source link

On 15 April, the BBC published an investigation into a “shadow industry of law firms and advisers… charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay in order to stay in the UK”. As ever, the focus of the investigation misses the point. Namely, that hostile immigration policies force people to take increasingly desperate measures.

Legal advisers help migrants pose as gay to get asylum, undercover BBC investigation finds https://t.co/33ujvSDzRk

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) April 15, 2026

BBC isn’t asking the right questions

Demonstrating that the ‘gay cover’ is being used because people are out of options, one of the advisers told the BBC investigator:

Listen to me. There is nobody who is real. There is only one way out in order to live here now and that is the very method everyone is adopting.

The adviser in question charged £2,500 for their services, so they’re clearly profiting from the situation. Whenever you clamp down on safe and legal options, however, you create avenues for this sort of activity.

A point of comparison is with the smuggling networks who help refugees and migrants reach the UK. As the Green Party wrote in a policy paper on the matter:

If safe routes existed, people would take them. Instead, we have taken away their ability to arrive within permissible routes and thus force them to take more and more dangerous routes. Not only are we causing these risks and ensuring the growth of smuggling networks

The BBC could ask ‘why are we making this country increasingly hostile towards people who want to come here and contribute?‘

Instead, the British media has internalised the idea that the environment must become more and more hostile, and that when this inevitably leads to workarounds, we must all pretend to be shocked.

Anyway, it’s always good to remember:

fixing our asylum system to one that works better for everybody is perfectly possible https://t.co/C2zJXZY9ay

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) April 14, 2026

The UK’s deporter-in-chief, meanwhile, used the story as an excuse to talk tough:

Anyone abusing protections for people fleeing persecution over gender or sexual orientation is beyond contempt.

Let me be clear: try to defraud the British people to enter or remain in the UK and your asylum claim will be refused, your support cut off, and you will find yourself…

— Shabana Mahmood MP (@ShabanaMahmood) April 15, 2026

Advertisement

When you purposefully build a cruel system, you can’t be surprised when people do what they can to protect themselves.

Narratives

The BBC investigation further adds to the narrative that refugees are duplicitous. As the investigation shows, however, these people are being led into making decisions based on the idea that it’s the only option they have.

If you want people to behave honestly, you need an honest and transparent system. Instead, we have one which forces people to jump through hoops – not because there’s merit to doing so, but because Labour and the Tories decided it would hold Nigel Farage at bay.

This reporting will also place further suspicion on LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. Speaking on this, the Peter Tatchell Foundation said:

The Home Office must not allow fraudulent claims to weaken its resolve to give asylum to LGBTs who have suffered, or are at risk of, arrest, imprisonment, torture and the failure of police in their home countries to protect them from mob violence and attempted murder.

Safeguarding the integrity of the asylum system is essential to maintaining public trust and, most importantly, to ensuring that real victims of homophobic persecution are not overlooked or refused a safe haven

Reactivity

Under Keir Starmer, Labour’s immigration policy has been reactive. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been reactive to the needs of refugees or to the prosperity of the country; it’s been reactive to the politics of Reform UK.

Dancing to Farage’s tune has prove to be disastrous for Labour’s polling. Hopefully they wise up to that reality soon, and they don’t simply double down on creating a hostile environment that serves as a breeding ground for problems.

Featured image via BBC

By Willem Moore

Source link

1955: ‘The Durbar of Eid-ul-Fitr, Kano, Nigeria’ by Ben Enwonwu. (c) Ben Enwonwu Foundation. Private Collection

4 min read2 hr

Filled with exquisite works, this Tate Modern exhibition offers refreshingly well-rounded representations of African women and a vital lesson in Nigerian cultural expression

Advertisement

So many of these artworks are outstanding that I spent longer than expected wandering though the gallery. Ben Enwonwu’s works made an immediate impact on me, as I’d not seen much of his work in real life before. The breadth of Enwonwu’s artistry is staggering: beautiful portraits in oils; delicate sculptures in bronze and wood; surprising commissions (to me, at any rate) include a sculpture of Queen Elizabeth in the 1950s and seven linked wooden sculptures commissioned by the Daily Mirror in 1960. 

This exhibition contains too many stunning pieces to describe here: artists spanning eras from pre- to post-independence from colonial rule are represented, and I found this aspect immensely enjoyable. Carved sculptures using wood and metal, paintings, photography, satirical cartoons, textile patterns and pottery are all given space to breathe. Ample contextual notes give a sense of the sources of inspiration – and key Nigerian and African diaspora artists and thinkers are linked to other African diaspora intellectual and political movements, such as Négritude. Online notes, accessed via a QR code, further augment the exhibition’s description of the artwork.

Engagement with European modern artistic practice is evidenced in several artists’ work and, unsurprisingly, that cultural dialogue is woven across the Black Atlantic to feed into and derive inspiration from the African-American Harlem Renaissance and Blues Aesthetic, Pan Africanism and Négritude.

Advertisement

Most closely associated with the Senegalese politician and poet Léopold Senghor, Négritude speaks to Africa’s own response to the rapidly evolving modern, post-imperial world, incorporating traditional cultural forms denigrated during colonial rule. In addition to referencing Senghor, several of the artworks evoke contemporary cinematic developments in Afro-Futurism. Some of Enwonwu’s paintings could easily have been the inspirational source of the costumes and movement sequences in the Oscar-winning films Black Panther and Sinners.

African women have traditionally been the object of the male gaze in ways that differ from how European women have been viewed and represented: it’s only relatively recently that African women have been recognised as having agency and been represented as something more than the stereotypical, tourist-friendly, carved wooden ‘tribal woman’. Here, though, we see women as artists, skilled makers and crafts people, dedicated to both traditional ways of working and embracing the modern.

One example stood out for me: Ladi Kwali’s pots, so exquisitely formed and decorated – all by hand. There’s a photograph of her making a pot outdoors on a sunny day, during her tour of the USA, as students look on, enthralled.

There’s still a tendency to underestimate African art and artists – their skills and achievements, their intellectual and cultural connectedness. The lack of knowledge of the post-Second World War context of this period – and the rich Nigerian cultural expression that emerged before and during the course of it – is still not generally known.

This exhibition is an enticing glimpse of the relationship between art, culture and politics from a continent bursting with creative talent, historically and in the present day.

Baroness Young of Hornsey is a Crossbench peer

Nigerian Modernism

Curated by: Osei Bonsu and Bilal Akkouche

Venue :Tate Modern – until 10 May 2026

 

Advertisement

Source link

NHS data analytics staff have been told they will lose their jobs if they keep on criticising the government’s £330m software from murderous US spy software firm Palantir. The threat comes despite calls from doctors, privacy and safety experts, lawyers and human rights groups for the NHS to bin the software, which gathers sensitive patient data.

One NHS data manager told the Financial Times (FT) that he was told directly by an NHS boss linked to the contract:

If you criticise the FDP one more time, you are going to lose your job. I know I am not the only one inside the NHS who has been warned off criticising the tool publicly.

When letters go out saying, ‘Sign this or we’ll call your chief executive’, that doesn’t build goodwill. It creates compliance, not commitment.

Signing up to use Palantir’s ‘Federated Data Platform’ (FDP) is notionally voluntary, but the government is pressuring NHS trust bosses to adopt it. However, many NHS staff are refusing to engage with the platform because of Palantir’s admitted – even boasted-about – role in helping Israel and the US murder people they don’t like and the openly fascist views of the company’s bosses.

Despite its boasting about the people it helps kill, the Starmer government has been giving Epstein-linked Palantir hundreds of millions in public funds to spread its ‘tentacles‘ throughout government and public functions, including the ministry of defence as well as the NHS.

Another NHS official told the FT that:

I was told ‘the FDP will do that’ [decide the direction of software development] and that they would talk to my boss to make sure I stopped work on the tool I was developing. It was a very real threat and I had colleagues tell me to ‘watch yourself’.

Trust bosses have been told to set binding schedules for FDP adoption and to fund ‘senior responsible officers’ to oversee implementation. More than half of NHS hospital trusts have already begun using it. Of the remaining 80 or so, 45 have signed up to begin. NHS England data boss Ming Tang said that the NHS will “maintain our focus” on embedding the platform despite Palantir’s well-known record.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Source link

We recently reported that a heckler on the Shetland Islands had given Nigel Farage the business – later that same day, another British citizen would take it to a Reform MP – this time Lee Anderson:

"So stick your little racist flags where the sun dont shine.."

Lee Anderson called a "scumbag" by woman during Reform UK campaign in Lowdham pic.twitter.com/SiEJtXt5F9

— Narinder Kaur (@narindertweets) April 14, 2026

Advertisement

Reform get told about themselves

In the clip above, the teacher confronting Anderson says:

The flags went up before the potholes were sorted. You could not tell the truth if your life depended on it. So get your silly little racist flags and stick them where the sun doesn’t shine. It’s pathetic.

Anderson responds by passively aggressively saying:

It’s very nice to meet you. Have a lovely day.

Anderson then posed for a photo with a Reform supporter as the woman returns to her. It doesn’t end there, though. Exposing how slowly he computes, Anderson shouts at the teacher:

Come to Ashfield, you can see the potholes being mended!

She responds by explaining she used to teach in Ashfield, to which Anderson responds:

It’s no wonder our kids’ brains are messed up.

You should have stuck to the passive aggression, Lee.

It made you look bad, obviously, but the above makes it look like you’re a vindictive loser who isn’t fit to be anywhere near office.

It didn’t stop with that exchange either; this is what Anderson would later post:

Our teaching profession….

Not all of them but far too many. https://t.co/QTgzu3EMOu

— Lee Anderson MP (@LeeAndersonMP_) April 14, 2026

In other words, she got under his skin, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the exchange ever since.

Flags first

As we’ve reported, it’s no surprise everyday citizens think Anderson’s party prioritise flags over people:

NEW – Reform-led Nottinghamshire County Council are set to piss away £75k on flags while 22% of local children live in poverty

By @jjgjourno https://t.co/9QcUFD66yt

Advertisement

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) October 24, 2025

We’ve also covered the absolute chaos that is Reform’s 2026 local election campaign:

• Reform candidate wants to ‘tear down’ the NHS.
• Reform candidate exposed as a horny nincompoop.
• Reform welcomes ‘shoot the p*kis’ scandal ex-Tory.
• Farage heckled at Reform’s Jimmy Saville-aping London launch.
• Video emerges of Reform’s ‘Nazi salute’ candidate drink driving.

With this racist shower now insulting teachers on the street, it seems the campaign has a ways to go before it hits rock bottom.

Featured image via X/Twitter

By Willem Moore

Source link

Source link

On 12 April, after 16 years, Hungary voted out far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán in favour of relative-newcomer Péter Magyar. The Canary has since covered the potential impacts on Orbán’s authoritarian allies, including both Vladimir Putin and Nigel Farage.

Our colleague Skwawkbox characterised both Orbán and Magyar thus:

As the careful reader will have noted, both men are right-wingers. Quite hard right-wingers. But while Orbán is EU-phobic, Magyar has promised closer ties with the union. However, Magyar is not expected to change Hungary’s defence of Israel against any stray EU anti-genocide measures in any significant way.

Great. Another rigged ‘two cheeks of the same arse’ result while Israel continues to slaughter and destabilise.

And, there’s more at play here – particularly with regard to Magyar’s intention to rejoin the International Criminal Courth (ICC), which currently has a warrant out for Netanyahu’s arrest. 

The butcher’s endorsement

The Israeli PM went to great lengths to endorse Orbán for this year’s election. In fact, Netanyahu and his son Yair even appeared virtually at Orbán’s first campaign rally and a US-led Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) event.

Regarding CPAC, Haaretz highlighted the fact that Israel was actively cosying up to neo-Nazi forces:

The Netanyahus shared the stage with a slew of far-right European leaders, including from Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) – parties that Israel officially boycotts because of their antisemitic roots and members – as well as other right-wing populist leaders from Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Estonia, Poland, Spain, Paraguay and Italy.

At the far-right conference, Netanyahu heartily endorsed Orbán:

I want to thank my friend Viktor Orbán, who has been a rock… I know many world leaders, but I can tell you that he is right there at the top. Viktor Orbán means stability, safety and security.

In spite – or perhaps because of – that glowing endorsement from the butcher of Gaza, Orbán failed to secure a fifth term in power.

Hungary ‘special relationship’

However, it’s still unknown just how much Magyar’s premiership might impact Netanyahu and Israel more broadly.

Israeli outlets have previously reported that they don’t expect any radical shifts in Hungary’s Zionist outlook. Indeed, Magyar has stated specifically that he will maintain his Budapest’s “special relationship” with Jerusalem.

However, mirroring his attitude towards Moscow, Magyar emphasised that he wound take a “pragmatic” attitude towards Jerusalem. This would include “carefully” examining EU proposals regarding Israel.

Of course, this currently looks unlikely to result in an actual contrast with Orbán’s habit of vetoing or watering-down any EU sanctions or critical statements on Israel. Whilst Magyar indicated that he doesn’t want to “rush ahead” in deciding how closely Hungary will align with EU decisions in general, he said outright that:

Hungary will continue to block EU decisions regarding Israel. […]

We will see when and what decision the EU makes and what is the interest, what is the truth.

The truth and Netanyahu are perfect strangers, if you ask us – but what do we know?

The International Criminal Court

However, in a potential signal of a more radical break from Orbán, Magyar has pledged to rejoin the ICC. Regarding the international court, Magyar stated that it’s “in Hungary’s interest to be part of it”.

Orbán previously withdrew Hungary from the ICC in June 2025, after it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over his war crimes in Gaza. The ICC stated that the Israeli PM was: 

Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.

Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC left the central European nation as the only EU state that Netanyahu could visit without risking arrest. Notably, however, not even that fact could entice the Israeli dictator to appear at the CPAC event in person.

With Hungary rejoining the ICC, Magyar may end up treading a very fine line maintaining Hungary’s “special relationship” with an Israeli PM for whom it also holds an active arrest warrant. Of course, how this will actually play out remains to be seen.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Source link