Exiting from the revolving door of Rome’s Grand Hotel Plaza, I was crushed between bearded giants in three-piece suits, as a heaving scrum of nationalists and cameramen jostled for position on the pavement. The strains of a busker strumming Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” vibrated through the Roman air, yet could not distract attention from the main act, about to step from his vehicle on to the red carpet. Anticipation soon turned to dismay, as the dark-windowed Maserati produced not Viktor Orbán — the star speaker at this year’s National Conservatism conference — but an unknown guest.
The organisers of “NatCon,” which took place on 3-4 February, included the Edmund Burke Foundation, a conservative think tank based in the Hague, and an Italian group called Nazione Futura. Although they wanted to make the event feel like a convention, the hotel lobby featured only three small stalls – two for conference passes and one selling books by speakers such as the writer Douglas Murray and the French right’s rising star Marion Maréchal. Both were billed to talk alongside Orbán, as well as the suave Dutch anti-immigration politician Thierry Baudet and the Lega leader Matteo Salvini (who failed to show).
Content from our partners
