A senior Boris Johnson aide has said the UK will forge a “special relationship” with Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government in Hungary after Brexit, praising the country’s “interesting early thinking” on the “limits of liberalism”.



Tim Montgomerie, a former journalist who was hired by Downing Street as the prime minister’s social justice adviser in September, made the highly controversial comments at a meeting hosted by the Danube Institute, a right-wing think tank, in Budapest on Dec. 17.

In remarks that were not signed off by Downing Street or Johnson, Montgomerie said: “I think there will be very significant investment by Boris Johnson in relationships, particularly bilaterally, with key European states. I think the French relationship will be significant, and I think this relationship with Budapest will be significant as well.



“Budapest and Hungary have been home, I think, for an awful lot of interesting early thinking on the limits of liberalism, and I think we are seeing that in the UK as well. So I hope there will be a special relationship with Hungary amongst other states.”

After BuzzFeed News uncovered the remarks in a video of the event posted on YouTube by the Danube Institute, a source said Montgomerie had not yet returned to Number 10 following the general election, and it was still to be decided whether he would continue his job advising the prime minister.