The Brexit-influencing game: how IEA got involved with a US rancher
The peaceful creeks and lakes of rural Oklahoma are a world away from the frenzied political fight over Brexit.
More than 4,000 miles from Westminster, this is the stomping ground of Tucker Link, an influential US business figure who appears to have taken a keen interest in the UK’s departure from the EU.
Link has global interests in chemicals, technology and property. Until recently he owned a picturesque 4,450-hectare (11,000-acre) ranch in the Ouachita Mountains with a more than 1,000-head herd of Angus cattle and state-of-the-art laboratories to assist reproduction.
It is one of the 55,000 cattle farms in a state that is one of the biggest beef producers in the US.
Much US beef is banned in Britain under EU prohibitions against growth hormones. That could change after Brexit if ministers sign a free trade deal with the US.
Undercover investigations by Greenpeace have now shown how Link and other agriculture and energy investors are working with a leading thinktank in Westminster to promote their cause.
According to several hours of undercover footage shot by the environmental group and shared with the Guardian, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has been seeking donations from US agribusiness and has not been shy about touting what it says it can offer in return.
The thinktank boasted it had regular access,
