Are you “right wing”?


No.

The IEA is a free market think tank and should be introduced as such in media and public appearances. For example, the BBC’s editorial guidelines make such attribution clear.

Our emphasis on economic freedom, the positive role of markets, and the protection of civil liberties, is consistent with a wide range of political positions, and free-market ideas have been used by groups who would self-identify as left, centre or right. This becomes less apparent when national politics are particularly polarised, but it does not change the commitment of the IEA to support ideas, not parties.

A good example is housing policy. Does the free-market desire to liberalise planning laws to build more homes sit on the right as anti-interventionist? Or on the left as a method of redistributing wealth from asset-rich pensioners to asset-poor youth? Is it anti-conservationist to wish to build on the green belt, or environmentalist due to the improved biodiversity of gardens and parks over agricultural land? Is abolishing stamp duty conservative, socialist or liberal?


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