Orbán’s pay cheques: Reform candidate fuelled by profits from Russian oil

Matt Goodwin, the GB News presenter standing for Reform UK in this month’s Gorton and Denton byelection, says he wants his “country back”. But Good Law Project can reveal that he received a salary of up to €10,000 a month from a far-right pressure group based in Hungary.

Goodwin has been speaking at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) events since 2024 and seems to have served as a “visiting fellow” since at least last summer, when he returned to Budapest in August to speak on a panel moderated by the British anti-trans commentator Joanna Williams.

According to leaked documents obtained by Direkt 36, visiting fellows are paid between €5,000 and €10,000 per month “plus housing, office space, health insurance and, where appropriate, family support”. The fellowship ranges from two weeks to a year, but Direkt 36 found that it’s common for fellows to continue on a retainer. The investigation also found one-off guest speakers from abroad are paid handsomely: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son was paid €7,000 for two one-hour panel discussions.

MCC is a college and propaganda outfit for Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán based in Budapest. It is funded in part by a 10% stake in MOL Group – an energy giant that refines oil, most of which comes from Russia.

Last week, we revealed how MCC has spent more than £500,000 giving a megaphone to extreme rightwing voices in the UK. The college is plugged into an influence operation built around the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation – a network that includes Nigel Farage’s senior adviser and anti-abortion theologian James Orr, the Spectator editor and former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove, the anti-trans figurehead Kathleen Stock and the Palantir co-founder and friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Thiel.

In October 2025, Goodwin spoke at the Roger Scruton symposium at the Hungarian Embassy in London alongside other figures from the British right, MCC representatives and officials from Hungary’s energy and European Union Affairs ministries.

These latest revelations show how a candidate who has called for young girls to receive a “biological reality check” and suggested that people “without offspring” should pay more tax is being funded by groups pushing far-right ideology and culture wars in the UK.

MCC confirmed to Good Law Project that Goodwin has “participated” as a visiting fellow, teaching at “classes across Hungary” and giving “public lectures and educational events” – though they declined to confirm the size of his monthly payments.

The group, which has an endowment of more than €1bn from the Hungarian government, insisted it is not a “propaganda outlet”, claiming that it is “an educational institution and think-tank” that “regularly hosts discussions, debates, and public events that feature a wide range of perspectives”.

Reform told Good Law Project that Goodwin was a visiting fellow at MCC for a “brief period” and has also served as a senior fellow at Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House, and is currently a senior fellow at the University of Buckingham – another university that has a partnership agreement with MCC.

“It is standard for academics to hold fellowship positions at other institutions around the world,” they said, adding that the GB News presenter has given “paid talks to organisations around the world”.

Reform denied that MCC paid Goodwin €10,000 a month and rejected the idea that MCC is “funded by money from Russia”.

“These accusations are false and are part of a desperate attempt to derail a democratic by-election,” they said.

According to the Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, Good Law Project’s investigation makes it all the more vital that Reform are defeated in the Gorton and Denton byelection.

“This is more confirmation that Reform and Goodwin are not just part of an extremist anti-British project,” Polanski said, “but are also enriching themselves on foreign far-right money.”