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The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a British right-wing, free-market, libertarian think tank based on the ideas of Friedrich Hayek. BBC correspondent Andrew Marr called it "undoubtedly the most influential think tank in modern British history". It has advocated for a hard Brexit, and campaigned for the tobacco industry, privatising the National Health Service, against restrictions on junk food, against high-speed rail, and against trade unions and workers rights. It has close links to prominent right-wing Conservative Party politicians such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davis, Liam Fox, and British health secretary Matt Hancock. In recent years it has been criticised for the influence it has on the British government in pushing for right-wing policies and for its lack of transparency about who funds it.

Organisation and funding
Its source of funding is obscure: it is rated "highly opaque" (the lowest rating) by Transparify which campaigns for accountability of think tanks and other bodies; Who Funds You, another organisation investigating funding transparency rates it E (its worst rating) for not displaying funding information or identifying who funds it, although it mentions a few donors irregularly in its publications. It is known that it has received money from British American Tobacco (BAT), Japan Tobacco International, Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris International. According to Source Watch, its major funders since 1996 have included Conservative educational donors the Earhart Foundation and the Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Foundation, and religious charity the Templeton Foundation.

It is registered as an educational charity, which gives it significant tax advantages.

Early history
It was founded in 1955 by businessman Antony Fisher under the influence of free-market economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek; Fisher contacted another businessman, Oliver Smedley, for help. Smedley and Fisher were involved in a libertarian organisation, the Society of Individualists, and had campaigned against state regulation of agriculture, including the Milk Marketing Board and Egg Marketing Board, which were set up to regulate agriculture prices and ensure farmers received a reasonable income. According to Adam Curtis, its purpose was to popularise the ideas of Hayek, rather than to perform research or think up new ideas: "Fisher and Smedley knew they had to disguise what they were really up to. In 1955 Smedley wrote to Fisher - telling him bluntly that the new Institute had to be 'cagey' about what its real function was. It should pretend to be non-political and neutral, but in reality they both knew that would be a front.. The IEA would masquerade as a 'scholarly institute', as Hayek had suggested to Fisher, while behind that it would really function as an ideologically motivated PR organisation."

Figures involved in its early days included:
 * , a businessman who made his fortune with battery chicken firm Buxted Chickens, but went on to become a serial founder of right-wing libertarian and free market think tanks: the IEA was first but was followed by the Fraser Institute, the Manhattan Institute and the Pacific Research Institute, and then the Atlas Network which united them all. His daughter Linda Whetstone was active in the UK Conservative Party and was chair of another thinktank, the International Policy Network. Her daughter Rachel Whetstone is married to Steve Hilton, a PR guru who was closely linked to David Cameron.
 * , a former paratrooper and libertarian who became involved in pirate radio. Smedley had a long history of free-market and classical liberal ideas, and was also involved on the fringes of the British Liberal Party, speaking at their party conference in 1961 (where he reportedly received a largely hostile welcome). In 1966 Smedley shot dead rival pirate radio entrepreneur Reginald Calvert after an argument over their businesses, but claiming self-defence he was found not guilty.
 * George Winder, a lawyer and writer on economics whose book The Free Convertibility of Sterling was endorsed by the IEA.
 * , an economist who later had close links to Margaret Thatcher's government and led the, founded by Hayek.

Social Affairs Unit
The Social Affairs Unit was founded in 1980 as an offshoot to focus on social policy. It was very influential on Margaret Thatcher.

Recent
It had close links with the campaign for Brexit (Britain leaving the European Union). One IEA board member, Jon Moynihan, was treasurer of Vote Leave, the official leave campaign organisation in the 2016 referendum on EU membership, and it gave a job to Darren Grimes, who was fined £pound;20000 for breaking electoral funding rules as head of Brexit campaign group BeLeave.

On 12 July 2018 it was reported that the IEA was under investigation by the Charities Commission, which regulates British charities, for breaching the requirement of political neutrality.

On 29 July 2018 allegations that the IEA was selling access to British government ministers.