Where's the beef?

More guilt by association stuff in the Guardian. The lead story is headlined:

The Brexit-influencing game: how IEA got involved with a US rancher

This time, the spotlight is on the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a right -wing thinktank promoting market values while remaining as a charity. It's been talking to US business farmers (big farmers) who want to 'promote their cause'

We have the usual glamour and claimed authenticity of an undercover investigation of IEA activities, this time by Greenpeace who may have uncovered some indiscretions:

The thinktank boasted it had regular access, as often as every three or four days, to ministers. It mentioned the environment secretary, Michael Gove, and the trade secretary, Liam Fox, two people who could make a big difference to the meat eaten in post-Brexit Britain...Dominic Raab, the new Brexit secretary, is also one of the IEA’s most vocal supporters, crediting its founders with inspiring deregulations, union reforms and business tax cuts that “saved Britain”...
They are potentially important contacts for the Oklahoman farmers who already export about $400m (£350m) worth of beef and chicken a year, but mostly to Canada and Mexico...

So Tories are lobbied by agribusiness. Where's the beef? 'But at face value, all the soliciting and schmoozing by the IEA may seem at odds with its status as a registered educational charity, which should be apolitical.' There is of course a denial “It is spurious to suggest the IEA is engaging in any kind of ‘cash for access’ system,” a spokesman said. “All thinktanks have relationships with government officials and politicians ... We put people in touch when we feel there is a genuine interest on both sides.”, but Greenpeace wants to refer the issue to the Charity Commission,and 'Earlier this month, it [the CC]  was asked to review whether the thinktank repeatedly made “one-sided and controversial contributions aimed at reducing the role of the state”.

The Greenpeace tapes apparently show that “Our initial research and reporting indicated that secretly funded thinktanks have been working behind the scenes and alongside UK ministers to use Brexit to lower environmental standards.” Further down, we are told that US cattlemen are preparing to donate to campaign for Brexit, possibly anonymously

So, evidence is mounting then? We don't know the outcome yet of course.

But for the Graun, none of that matters because the IEA supports Brexit. Another outfit, the Legatum Institute (me neither) had already received a rebuke for producing a report on the benefits of Brexit that “failed to met the required standards of balance and neutrality”..And--get this!--the author of that report has since joined the IEA and he is the main link with US beef-raisers

So some nasty right-wingers are lobbying to take advantage of any free trade deals after Brexit. Has the Graun got enough to support the case that Brexit has therefore involved cheating?  Only if (a) you see this example of unsavoury lobbying as cheating; (b) it is enough to contaminate for ever the IEA and question its past activities; (c) the activities of the IEA adds to the view that the whole of Brexit is now null and void.