Lord Frost to head up IEA think tank
David Frost has been made the director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in a move the right-leaning think tank has said will herald a “new chapter” for the organisation.
Lord Frost, the former cabinet minister best known for spearheading the UK’s Brexit negotiations under Boris Johnson, will be responsible for driving the Tufton Street body’s revamped focus, on “rebuilding public understanding of how freedom, markets… and limited government” drive prosperity.
He will take on the role in January 2026, at which point the former diplomat will no longer take the Tory whip, and instead sit in the UK’s second chamber as a non-affiliated peer.
“I am delighted to be able to make the case for freedom from this new vantage point, as director general of the IEA, one of Britain’s oldest, greatest and certainly most pro-freedom think tanks,” said Frost.
“The IEA helped create the conditions for Britain’s free market revolution in the 1980s by refusing to compromise on its principles and by advocating them so clearly that they entered into the political bloodstream. That now needs to happen again if we are to defeat the current bleak outlook of statism and collectivism.”
Frost will replace Tom Clougherty as the organisation’s most senior full-time executive, after Clougherty stepped down from his role as executive director abruptly last month having been in post for less than two years.
Clougherty took over from the longstanding director general Mark Littlewood, who left the free market think tank in 2023, having spent nearly 15 years in the role. Littlewood is attributed with playing a prominent role helping shape the Liz Truss government’s policy agenda, and was nominated by the former prime minister for a peerage after she left office.
Frost will ‘renew IEA focus on freedom’
He is now director of the Popular Conservatism – or Popcon – movement, established by Truss and former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg shortly before the 2024 general election.
Frost will be the first IEA director general since Littlewood, having previously held several senior roles in the Foreign Office, including as the UK’s ambassador to Denmark between 2006 and 2008.
But the peer’s most significant role was as chief negotiator of the government’s Brexit talks with the EU under Johnson, eventually securing a deal after 10 rounds of negotiations.
After being given a peerage in 2020, Frost became a Cabinet Office minister and a member of the cabinet, before resigning over “concerns about the [Johnson government’s] direction of travel”.
Linda Edwards, chairman of the IEA board of trustees, said: “With David at the helm, the IEA will renew its focus on education and ideas: inspiring students, shaping debate, and giving future leaders the confidence to stand up for freedom.
“We are genuinely excited to begin this new chapter under strong leadership, determined to reassert why economic liberty, personal responsibility, and limited government remain the surest foundations for a flourishing society.”