The High Commissioner to Britain believes New Zealand will be better off overall as a result of Brexit, with a country that "needs some wins" eager to enter free trade negotiations, with little experience.

Sir Jerry Mateparae, the former Governor General and Defence Force chief, has been stationed in London since early 2017, during a referendum which found a majority of voters wanted Britain to exit the European Union.

While he described the negotiations as "tortuous" and said Britain faced a number of challenges, Mateparae said that the process for New Zealand – one of a handful of countries with which free trade talks were a priority – should on balance be favourable.

"Overall it can be positive for us economically, because we've been consistently told that we and a number of others are at the head of the queue when it comes to negotiating a free trade deal," he said.

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"The Brits are keen to make it happen... They need some wins, and we provide a neat, sort of, segue for them. We've got a long established relationship with them."

As well as Britain's desire to forge new bilateral relationships, New Zealand has the advantage of having far more experience in trade negotiations. Britain effectively outsourced such negotiations when it joined the European Economic Community, a precursor to the European Union.

"We've had 40 years of negotiating trade deals. [For Britain], even now, that sort of activity is run by the European Union. We've got that expertise."

However, the lack of experience could make Britain "reticent" about entering negotiations.

"The thing will be to get them to the table, to get them to the conversation."

Britain's farmers have long complained about New Zealand's products having access to British consumers, and Mateparae said the agricultural sector – smaller as a proportion of the British economy than New Zealand's – was concerned it could be overlooked in free trade negotiations.

"When you tell the farmers the size and the scale of our farming sector, dairy and meat, they're surprised. So in a way it's more about giving them information about what we actually represent.

"In some ways we're captive to our success, because they see us as this great big global farm."

As well as lobbying for businesses, Mateparae said he was pressing for improved access for New Zealanders to work in Britain, continuing a long tradition for young Kiwis to live and work in London.

Around eight years ago Britain made the latest in a series of changes around working holiday visas, which made it more difficult to transfer to other types of visas such as highly skilled migrant. This had the effect of making it harder to move to Britain for career purposes.

"We are certainly noticing that since Britain changed the settings in 2010, the absolute numbers are pretty much the same, but the quality of the numbers has reduced," Mateparae said.