The Institute of Economic Affairs is delighted to announce the final six candidates for the IEA Brexit Prize. The Rt Hon Lord Lawson will be awarding the €100,000 prize to the winning entry outlining a blueprint for Britain after the EU on 8 April.

Cash prizes will be awarded to the first, second and third best entries, as judged by the competition’s final judging panel. First prize is €100,000, second prize is €10,000 and third prize is €5,000. There will be a special prize of €5,000 for the best entry from an individual aged 30 or under. The winning entries will be published by the IEA. Judges-decisions are final.

Final shortlist:

·       Rory Broomfield and Iain Murray

·       Prof Stephen Bush

·       Ben Clements

·       Tim Hewish

·       Iain Mansfield

·       Daniel Pycock

Commenting on the release of the final shortlist, Mark Littlewood, Director General at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:

“The Brexit prize is an essential and timely contribution as we sit at a crossroads regarding our future relationship with both the EU and the rest of the world. Rather than focusing on the pluses and minuses of membership, we urgently need to address how the UK should arrange its affairs if a referendum triggered a Brexit. These final six entries will be key in providing the much needed intellectual backdrop for this.”

Judging panel

·       Nigel Lawson (Chairman), The Rt Hon Lord Lawson of Blaby, former Chancellor of the Exchequer

·       David Starkey, British constitutional historian and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London

·       Prof. Philip Booth (Facilitator), Institute of Economic Affairs and Cass Business School

·       Roger Bootle, founder of Capital Economics, a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Committee and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries. (Advisor and non-voting member)

·       Tim Frost, a governor of the LSE and director of Markit and Cairn Capital

·       Gisela Stuart, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston and editor of The House Magazine

·       Prof. Martin Ricketts, Professor of Economic Organisation at the University of Buckingham

·       Dr. Stephen Davies, Institute of Economic Affairs

Notes to editors:

1.     For media enquiries about the IEA Brexit Prize, please contact Stephanie Lis, Head of Communications, on 020 7799 8909 or 07766 221 268.

2.     The Brexit Prize will be awarded by the Rt Hon Lord Lawson at a ceremony in central London on Tuesday 8 April 2014, 6.30pm – 8.30pm. For more information, please contact Stephanie Lis, as above.

3.     The IEA believes that we need to give serious consideration to how the UK could have a free and prosperous economy outside the EU, given that exit is a serious possibility after the next election.

Entrants were asked to imagine a referendum has resulted in an “Out” vote and Her Majesty’s Government has triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Against this background, they were invited to compose a Blueprint for Britain outside the EU, covering the process of withdrawal and the post-exit repositioning of the UK in the global trading and governance systems.

Initial submissions were around 2,000 words in length. The competition’s judging panel then invited authors of the 17 shortlisted entries to make full submissions of between 10,000 and 20,000 words.

In total 149 entries were received. 100 of these were from submitters based in the UK and 49 of them from other countries, including: the USA, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, The Netherlands, Ukraine, Nigeria, Hungary, Zambia, Latvia, Austria, India, Norway, Zimbabwe, Denmark, Belgium, Russia and The Philippines. We received 35 entries from under-31s. The youngest entrant was 15-year-old Kieran Bailey.

For more detailed information about the remit please visit www.iea.org.uk/brexit.

4.     Biographies of the shortlisted applicants

                Rory Broomfield and Iain Murray

Rory Broomfield is Director of The Freedom Association and Director of the Better Off Out campaign. Rory has worked for a number of prominent Conservative Members of Parliament and several small businesses. He is also a former Director and Board Member of the United Nations Association in the UK (UNA-UK) and holds a First Class degree in Politics from the University of York along with Masters degrees from both City University London and Warwick Business School.

Iain Murray is Vice President for Strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington DC. He is the author of the best-selling books, The Really Inconvenient Truths and Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You. Before joining CEI, he was Senior Analyst and then Director of Research at the Statistical Assessment Service.

Prof Stephen Bush is Emeritus Professor of Process Manufacture and of Polymer Engineering at the University of Manchester. He has also been a well-known campaigner on political issues over a period of some 25 years.  He has written 5 substantial pamphlets on economic, political and educational issues and been a contributor to most of the major British TV and radio current affairs programmes.

Ben Clements is reading for a BA (hons) in Chinese and Japanese at the University of Manchester.

Tim Hewish is Director and Co-Founder, Commonwealth Exchange. He read for a Masters in Imperial and Commonwealth History at King’s College London. He currently works as a researcher for a Conservative Member of Parliament. He recently authored, Common-Trade, Common-Growth, Common-Wealth, an inquiry into the establishment of freer trade, growth and prosperity across Britain and the Commonwealth.

Iain Mansfield is Director of Trade and Investment at the British Embassy in Manila. Prior to this, he held a number of roles in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and its predecessor departments, including in science, trade policy and competition. Iain is also the author of the novel Imperial Visions and has a Masters in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge. His entry is in a personal capacity and does not represent the formal position of the British Embassy Manila, Foreign and Commonwealth Office or Her Majesty’s Government.

Daniel Pycock recently graduated from the University of St. Andrews, having studied History and Economics. He has conducted research for a number of writers on subjects including the early life of Colonel Qaddafi, the economic histories of Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore, and the economy of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1989. He has also worked at the Adam Smith Institute, where he evaluated the policies of the ECB, the NHS, DfID and the Bank of England, and undertook research on Incapacity Benefit waste prior to the 2010 general election.

5.     The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.

The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.