Right-wing think tank offered US donors 'access to ministers'

Right-wing think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs has been accused of offering donors access to ministers and civil servants in order to raise cash.

Undercover journalists from Greenpeace secretly recorded the director of the IEA, Mark Littlewood, saying that funders could get to know ministers on first-name terms. He also suggested that US donors could fund and shape “substantial content” of research commissioned by the IEA that would have results supporting free-trade deals.

“I have absolutely no problem with people who have business interests, us facilitating those,” Littlewood said in the recording. The investigation carried out in May and June also proved the IEA had already provided access to a minister for a US organisation.

The investigation also revealed that many US businesses are interested to influence the Brexit debate by supporting hardliners inside the Tory party.

This raises concerns on the independence of the IEA which is officially an educational charity. According to Charity Commission rules an organisation cannot be charitable if its purposes are political.

Greenpeace investigators suspected the IEA was working behind the scenes to use Brexit to lower environmental standards. The recordings will be handed over to the Charity Commission on Monday.

A spokesman for the think-tank told the Guardian: “It is spurious to suggest that the IEA is engaging in any kind of ‘cash for access’ system. All think tanks have relationships with government officials and politicians.” He said it had not accepted any cash from US business in relation to its work on trade and Brexit.

On Monday, Littlewood told the BBC that such interactions with donors were a fundamental part of the charity’s work and perfectly normal: “My job is to meet other free-market people to try and persuade them to give me some money so my institute can conduct free-market research so that we can influence debate and opinion in society.

“Let’s be clear about that. I have no power over ministers. I’m not a chief whip or a leader of a party. We can’t promise people any access at all. The IEA has done spectacularly well in engaging with politicians,” he added.