Formal complaint over rightwing think-tank’s ‘war of ideas’

Good Law Project has sent a formal complaint to the Charity Commission about persistent breaches of charity law at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

In March 2024, we worked with a cross-party group of politicians to demand action from the charities regulator over this radical rightwing think-tank.

The IEA says they are an educational charity and reaps the benefits. But charities which are set up to educate the public are not allowed to push “pre-determined policy positions”. When the commission looked into racial justice charity the Runnymede Trust in 2021, they concluded the trust had to make sure their engagement with political parties was “balanced”, declaring that charities “must be able to show” they are not driven by “the background, world view or political inclinations and interests of their leaders”.

But in November, the commission closed their investigation into the IEA without taking any action. The think-tank had shown a “significant change in approach”, the regulator said, adding that they had made “a push for greater transparency and political neutrality”.

It was clear that the commission hadn’t gone far enough. And it didn’t take long for the IEA to show it had no intention of changing course.

Days after the regulator told us about the think-tank’s “assurances” that it would make changes, the IEA appointed Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, David Frost, as executive director. They published an interview in which Frost looked ahead to the think-tank “winning the long-term war of ideas, making free market solutions the obvious answer when Britain reaches its crisis point.” That doesn’t sound much like avoiding pre-determined policy positions to us.

In recent publications, the IEA has attacked tax rises, equality and diversity laws, employment rights, rent controls, and a trophy hunting ban. Its reports are often endorsed by rightwing politicians, including the Reform MP Richard Tice, and Conservative MPs such as Mel Stride and Claire Coutinho.

Since we made our first complaint to the commission in 2024, the IEA has published more than 100 reports and press releases calling for free-market policies, while remaining largely silent on progressive alternatives.

It’s time for the Charity Commission to stop this tide of rightwing propaganda. To hold the IEA to the standards that it set when investigating the Runnymede Trust.

We’ll be keeping up the pressure until they do.