A supporter of the 'leave' campaign in the 2016 Brexit vote, Hannan writes regularly about the United Kingdom's future international trade relationship once it leaves the EU. In September 2017, he became the founding president of the Institute for Free Trade (IFT), a free-market think tank based in London. Following the creation of the UK Government's Department for International Trade (DIT) to prepare for international trading arrangements after Brexit, the IFT states its aims as filling the gap in UK-based research and expertise on trade issues. Chuka Umunna has described the organisation as "fanatical hard Brexit-supporting ideologues".