Yes, crazy stuff but worryingly real. Below is the main body of that Guardian article, from 3 years ago. Add to that - the MCC is funded by government-provided shares in the Hungarian multinational oil company MOLGroup, which refines oil from Russia and elsewhere. (Wikipedia).
Sources have said a Hungarian cultural centre near Trafalgar Square is expected to include a branch of Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a private university sometimes likened to a seminary for young Orbán-sympathising scholars and future leaders.
MCC, which is lavishly funded by Orbán’s government – in 2020 it received more than £1.3bn in state money and assets – already operates in the UK through a deal with the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, which promotes the ideas of the late British conservative philosopher.
MCC finances scholarships for hundreds of students to attend top universities, some of whom will now be sent on courses in the UK.
Orbán’s support for MCC and other institutions that espouse his ideas has been described by one supporter of the Hungarian prime minister as an attempt to create a worldwide “deep state” to cement his legacy.
Some alumni of MCC have told the Guardian that the college appeared to select bright students from modest backgrounds, who were taken to expensive restaurants and on foreign trips and addressed by far-right speakers including the US broadcaster Tucker Crlson and Orbán himself.
Orbán, who won his fourth consecutive term last year, has been hostile towards LGBTQ+ people, asylum seekers, NGOs and the independent media, with MCC a key part of how he wields cultural power. This year MCC bought Hungary’s largest bookseller, which subsequently began wrapping children’s and young adult books that feature LGBTQ+ characters in plastic.
A key connection in the UK is James Orr, a Cambridge divinity academic who has close links to a series of rightwing Conservative MPs. Orr co-runs the UK branch of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation and has close links to MCC
Orr, who told the Guardian he had no knowledge about any move into London by MCC, was one of the organisers of May’s National Conservative Conference which was attended by a series of Conservative ministers and MPs. He is also involved in a think-tank with the Tory MPs Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates.
Among members of the Scruton foundation’s advisory board are John Hayes, another leading culture war-friendly Conservative MP, and Douglas Murray, the Spectator writer, who is also a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute, a rightwing thinktank partly funded by the Hungarian state.