The IEA is supremely well-connected in Westminster. Its director general is a trade advisor to Liz Truss. It doesn't declare its donors.

Now an IEA advisor says it's 'hiding' behind charity laws to act as a lobbying outfit.

New @openDemocracy exclusive

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
Anthony J Evans says the IEA prioritises “trolling” critics on social media while 'hiding' behind its charitable status to lobby.

Evans is listed as a member of the IEA’s shadow monetary policy committee – he says he stopped participating but “no one appeared to even notice”
“There's been a strategic choice to move away from being a serious, well respected representation of the best free market thinkers, towards being a provocative attention seeker," Evans says of IEA.

That's same IEA with ear of government and access to ministers.
In 2018, IEA's Mark Littlewood boasted to a undercover @UE reporter that he was in 'the Brexit influencing game', offering to facilitate meetings with ministers for anonymous donors.

Last month, Littlewood was appointed as a 'strategic expert' to int'l trade minister Liz Truss
IEA's also been heavily critical of lockdown - its 'lifestyle economics editor' said “The only people who want another lockdown are communists and incels”. In May, IEA called for the end of furlough.

But privately the think tank used the furlough scheme during pandemic...
IEA's media access really is remarkable.

Accounts says it had 3,600 media 'hits' in UK last year. That's ONE HUNDRED media hits a day.

As former Tory minister Guto Bebb says in my book, "if you are willing to put £250k in a think tank, you can get a lot of bang for your buck"
“The IEA's reputation now is primarily for social media impact and mischief” - says Anthony J Evans who published a book with the IEA in 2018.

(Of course, the IEA also hired Darren Grimes to run social media operation after the Brexit vote...)
IEA has access to government, too. Three meetings with Liz Truss were wiped from public records as they were 'personal' - although they've been reinstated Truss's department refuses to release more info.

In 2019, Littlewood wrote to Boris Johnson thanking for previous meeting
The previous day, Littlewood wrote to Andrea Leadsom saying he “would be happy to arrange a meeting with one of our experts” for the newly appointed energy secretary.

Leadsom later responded saying she “looked forward to working with the IEA"
All of these documents took @JennaCorderoy months to prise out of government. The IEA still refuses to say who funds it.

Please do consider supporting @openDemocracy to keep this work going. Thanks support.opendemocracy.net/project/home?s…
I'm obviously useless at maths now. Should be ten hits a day. Which is still a huge amount, but a lot less than 100

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Peter Geoghegan

Peter Geoghegan Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @PeterKGeoghegan

28 Oct
Have starting to listen to loads of different morning radio shows to get a better handle on what's happening across the UK/int'l. Today @bbcradioulster. Plus: get great local coverage. Minus: have to listen to Sammy Wilson spread Covid misinfo, then blame rise on the GAA.
Sammy is like the comment pages of the Telegraph made flesh (and given a seat in Parliament)
He's now kicking at the BBC for not reading out figures of cancer deaths every day. I'd love to know what Facebook closed groups Sammy is a member of
Read 4 tweets
17 Oct
This really is remarkable. A credit rating agency, Moody's, citing "weakening" of British democracy as factor in yesterday's UK downgrade
ft.com/content/117349…

And what does UK government intend to do about this? Well, Tories floated idea of abolishing Electoral Commission...
You'd think having written a book called 'Democracy for Sale' all about how British democracy has been degraded and undermined, I'd be inured to this sort of thing. But I'm still shocked to see a rating's agency say this and barely anyone bat an eyelid.
Like how do you dismiss this. "There is nothing wrong with British democracy. Of course those pinkos at, eh, Moody's would say this"?
Read 5 tweets
24 Sep
Remember Lubov Chernukhin, top Tory donor whose husband was secretly given $8m by a Kremlin-friendly oligarch before Brexit ref in 2016? Well, turns out Electoral Commission has had concerns about her and other Tory Russian donors for a while (thread)

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
In internal emails, UK elections watchdog alerted staff to 'interesting donations' from Lubov Chernukhin, flagged Chernukhin in discussions around 'foreign interference' in Britain and queried other Tory donations from Russian-linked businesses. Ultimately, no action was taken
As well as Chernukhin, the Electoral Commission was concerned about a £10k donation from a company owned by ex-Tory MP James Wharton, who worked for Tory donor Alexander Temerko (and was recently made Lord Wharton by Boris Johnson) and donations from Temerko's firm Aquind
Read 7 tweets
21 Sep
Sitting down to watch @BBCPanorama 's documentary about how Russian money has flooded into British public life, and the City has facilitated industrial level money laundering. Should be interesting.... 😬
Remarkable line in this Panorama. When journalists went to UK government with their findings, government declined to comment but on Friday, a few days before broadcast, announced new plans for company rules to combat fraud....
Some gold right of replies in this doc too. 'Arab Bank said very few of the accounts involved were linked to known terrorists at the time'. That's grand so 😬
Read 4 tweets
17 Sep
Shanker Singham’s consultancy spent $20,000 on Washington lobbyists pushing for a US-UK free trade deal.

MPs raise concerns about conflicts of interest w/Singham is in line for slice of £200m govt contract.

Latest @openDemocracy scoop w/ @marcusleroux

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
Int'l trade secretary Liz Truss appointed Singham to a key UK government commission on trade and agriculture - while he was continuing to work for undisclosed private clients.

"These relationships should be known and not hidden" says @AngusMacNeilSNP
Transparency docs show that Competere - Singham's private firm - paid $20k to Transnational Strategy Group, a Washington DC-based lobbying firm who helped broker a series of meetings in Washington for Singham and former Northern Irish first minister David Trimble.
Read 8 tweets
15 Sep
A *very* curious tale. March 16, Boris Johnson told Britons to avoid ‘non-essential contact’. Three days later PM met Evgeny Lebedev's holding company-but No 10 says meeting was 'personal' so refuses to release any details.

New from @RussellScott1 and me
opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
72 hours after warning British public to cease all unnecessary contact Johnson meets Lebedev Holdings at the PM's private residence. So that's a company, must be a business/political meeting and fully declared as such? Nope, No 10 says it's 'personal' so all details private
So PM had a 'social/personal' meeting with a holding company (as you do) but after telling everyone to cut social contact. There is an alternative explanation: it was a business meeting. Then why not disclosed? A few months later Johnson nominated his old friend Lebedev to Lords
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!