London groups, politicos look to stop Vona’s right-wing meet

Party Popularity

Jobbik party president Gábor Vona seeks to meet with like-minded extreme rightists from the UK and Greece this upcoming weekend in London. The scheduled event is seen as a prelude to an expected coalition agreement between the three parties for the upcoming term of European Union parliament – but some local groups and politicos are working to ensure that the meeting never takes place at all.

In an appeal to Home Secretary Theresa May that described Jobbik as “the most powerful outwardly fascist political party in Europe,” London Assembly member Andrew Dismore emphatically stated that he has “no doubt that all decent-thinking people in London will join with me in demanding that the Home Secretary says ‘No to Jobbik’.”

Dismore went on to emphasize that “While I advocate the right to free speech in our society, this must also be balanced against other human rights. It is particularly important to note that his event is being held on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day when the offence of his meeting will be all the more damaging.”

Local organization Hope Not Hate has campaigned against the rally in Holborn since learning of its existence, warning that Vona & co. seek to stir up support among England’s emigrated Hungarian population and to, in Vona’s words, “give them hope.”

British National Party (BNP) president Nick Griffin was in Athens last week to politically flirt with Golden Dawn party members and has stated that Jobbik is a party with whom his EU Parliament delegation “could do business.”

“There are a common core set of values [among the BNP, Jobbik, Golden Dawn parties]: opposition to mass immigration from the Third World, defense of Christian traditional values, the eventual breakup of the European Union, as quickly as possible, and opposition to globalism,” Griffin was quoted in The Independent as explaining. “To an extent I am [taking the lead], but Jobbik is very seriously involved as well. Jobbik tends to work with people in Central and Eastern Europe whereas I tend to do Western and Southern Europe – it’s a joint effort.

One might wonder just how effective a coalition would be in Brussels, however. In the current makeup of 766 EU MPs, the three parties currently boast a total of three combined. Jobbik managed to get three representatives elected in 2009, but the party’s one-time rising star Csanád Szegedi has eschewed his party affiliation and now stands as an independent. BNP managed to elect one EU parliamentarian, while the Golden Dawn party placed exactly zero of its members in Brussels.

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