Michael Gove has come under fire for repeatedly refusing to condemn Viktor Orbán, as the Tories faced a backlash for opposing European censure of the Hungarian prime minister.
The environment secretary said he was “not going to be drawn” into giving an assessment of individual leaders after Conservative MEPs opposed a motion against Hungary in the European parliament earlier this week.
The party was criticised by Muslim and Jewish groups, who said Orbán had presided over a climate of rising Islamophobia and antisemitism in his country.
Friends of the environment secretary later defended his approach, saying he would be wary of public rebuke, but his instinct was to be critical.
“Anyone that knows Michael and his close connections with Conservative Friends of Israel and his views on these kinds of things will know exactly where he stands on Orbán,” one said.
Gove hinted that he was wary of making public criticisms because of the delicacy of the UK’s relations with EU leaders during the Brexit negotiations.
“It’s not for me to rank a league table of EU leaders and to say that one is my favourite or that one [I] have less time for,” he told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show. “Because I believe in cooperative diplomacy, I believe in generosity of spirit towards EU partners.”
He said he did not believe “individual criticisms of the kind you are understandably tempting me to make necessarily help us in ensuring we get both solidarity on the issues that count and the best deal for Britain as we leave the European Union”.
Gove said it was “not true” that the Conservatives supported Orbán. “It’s a longstanding principle of a number of MEPs from different countries and from different parties not to believe that the European parliament should interfere in or censure the internal democracy of a particular country,” he said.
Some Tories have been openly critical of the decision, including the Conservative peer Daniel Finkelstein, who described the move as “very distressing”.
Jon Trickett, the shadow lord president of the council, said it showed an “acceleration of extremist rightwing tendencies in the Conservative party”.
“Michael Gove refused to condemn Viktor Orbán, who leads the Hungarian government’s pandering to antisemitism and Islamophobia, attacks on judicial and media independence, and abhorrent treatment of refugees and minorities,” he said.
“It is shocking that Tory MEPs voted against censuring the reactionary Hungarian government and that cabinet ministers are now choosing to support the Orbán government’s authoritarian and anti-democratic practices.”
The European parliament voted on Wednesday to trigger the EU’s most serious disciplinary procedures, due to policies in Hungary to reduce judicial independence and increase government control over the media, as well as concerns about corruption.
It was the first use of an article seven procedure against a member state, which could, if pursued, see Hungary stripped of its voting rights in the EU. The motion was narrowly passed by the necessary two-thirds majority, with the Conservatives almost alone among centre-right parties opposing it.
Downing Street has argued MEPs make their own decisions, distancing itself from the move.
