UK think-tank offers €100,000 for best post-EU strategy for the UK

A UK free market think-tank has announced a €100,000-euro prize for the best strategy for powering the British economy if the country voted in a referendum to end its 40-year membership of the EU.

The UK is locked in a heated debate over its role in the EU after prime minister David Cameron bowed to heavy pressure from the eurosceptic wing of his own party, promising in January to win back powers from Brussels.

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a right-wing think-tank that has described the EU as an "unaccountable regulatory superstate", said the UK's withdrawal was a serious possibility following the referendum pledge of Cameron.

The "Brexit Prize" would go to the best plan that would explain how the UK could successfully pull out of the 28-nation bloc and find a new place in the global economy. The deadline for submissions is 16 September with the winner to be announced in 2014 to coincide with elections to the European Parliament.

According to pro-EU campaigners, withdrawal from the EU would amount to economic suicide damaging  the UK's world standing.

Contestants for the Brexit Prize, for British exit, or ''Brexit'', from the EU, would need to visualise a post ''Out'' vote scenario following a referendum and the government invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

They would then be required to draw up 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. Judges would include chancellor Nigel Lawson, broadcaster David Starkey and Tim Frost of the London School of Economics.

The intervention follows the rise of UK Indpendence Party and a promise by Conservative leaders to hold an in / out referendum.

Business leaders including Sir Richard Branson, Sir Roger Carr and Sir Martin Sorrell have called for the UK going with the EU, though at the same time pushing for reforms to make the bloc more competitive.

Prominent British business leaders had said earlier this year that the UK would lose 37 trade agreements with ''Brexit'' as well as the ''colossal bargaining power'' of the 27-nation union.

They also harped on the benefits of closer integration on trade to include digital, energy, transport and telecoms, pointing out that deepening the single market could result in doubling the economic benefits of EU membership, boosting the GDP of the UK by £110 billion.

The membership of the 27-member union is thought to bring an extra £31 billion to £92 billion into the economy.