“If we go and vote ‘no’ four times, the referendum will settle this issue for a long time to come,” the prime minister told voters in Eger, in northern Hungary. “The father is a man and the mother a woman, and our children should be left alone.”

At stake in the referendum is “whether we will keep our common sense”, Orbán said. Hungary is a free country where adults can decide how they want to live, he said. “We don’t want to interfere in that. But children — that’s a red line,” the prime minister said.

"Orbán said the aim of the referendum was to make it clear that “this kind of drivel” and “foreign fads” must not be allowed to make their way into schools.

If children are exposed to things in school that make the job of parents harder, then the school is doing something they have no authorisation to do, Orbán said.

“We expect teachers and schools not to re-educate our children,” Orbán said. “We never handed anyone our right to determine for us how children should be told about these very difficult issues in life,” the prime minister said, adding that parents should have the exclusive right to make that decision.