Viktor Orbán turns Texas conference into transatlantic far-right love-in

The Hungarian prime minister was the opening speaker at this week's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, and perhaps the most vivid demonstration yet of the mutual and rapidly growing affinity between the far right in America and Europe.

And extraordinarily for a foreign leader, he overtly sided with an opposition party - the Republicans - rather than the incumbent Democrats, paying homage to Trump at his golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey, while ignoring Joe Biden at the White House.

He noted that US midterm elections will be later this year followed by the presidential contest and European parliamentary elections in 2024. "These two locations will define the two fronts in the battle being fought for western civilisation. Today, we hold neither of them. Yet we need both."

On Friday the lineup included Steve Bannon, who has worked with openly racist far-right leaders across Europe and once leased a medieval monastery outside Rome to run a "populism bootcamp".

Bannon is former executive chairman of Breitbart News, which he once described as "the platform of the 'alt-right'", a movement associated with efforts to preserve "white identity" and defend "western values". He served as chief strategist in the Trump White House and is now facing prison after being convicted of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the January 6 committee.

Montgomery added: "We've actually seen some signs of that illiberalism and authoritarianism on the Trumpist right in their efforts to ban the teaching of racism in schools, in their aggressive attacks against LGBTQ materials and information in schools and libraries, and even their encouragement of harassment and violence that we've seen against election officials and school board members.

And at CPAC, purveyors of Trump's "big lie" - the false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him - held prominent slots. Mike Lindell, chief executive of MyPillow, pushed preposterous conspiracy theories about voting machines. Several speakers denounced the congressional investigation into the January 6 insurrection as a sham.

Robert P Jones, founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute thinktank in Washington and author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, said: "There is this identifiable movement. The difference in many of the European countries is it is represented in minority parties.

"In the US now, I think it's safe to say that this ethno-religious vision of the country has taken over one of our two major political parties. Even demographically speaking, nearly seven in 10 Republicans are white and Christian today in a country that's only 44% white and Christian. You can see that identity taking hold as the animating beating heart of the party. It's a really dangerous situation."