Gus O’Donnell says both public opinion and the EU itself may change, meaning the UK could be happy to remain part of union

Brexit is not inevitable and Britain could still remain a part of a changed European Union, the former head of the civil service has said.

Gus O’Donnell, who was the cabinet secretary from 2005-11, told the Times (subscription) that he anticipated the UK would retain EU laws and rules regardless of its status in the union.



The crossbench peer said: “Lots of people will say, ‘We’ve had the referendum, we’ve decided to go out, so that’s it, it’s all over’. But it very much depends what happens to public opinion and whether the EU changes before then.

“It might be that the broader, more loosely aligned group is something that the UK is happy being a member of.”

Before the referendum Lord O’Donnell had said that leaving the EU would be complicated and take a long time.

On Saturday, he said leaving would mean “a huge administrative and legislative change” because of the vast amount of EU law that had been implemented over the last 40 years. As a result, he said he believed the UK would keep them in place even if it did officially leave the bloc.

O’Donnell warned against rushing to trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which would begin the two-year countdown to Brexit.

The challenges facing the government were immense, but “the probability of us not leaving is very, very low and we need to get on and implement the people’s decision to leave”, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“The key for government is to have a strategic plan to say: ‘What kind of UK do we want? What is our place in the world? What are we trying to achieve in these negotiations?’

“Once you have got those strategic decisions sorted out, then you can go about thinking about ‘so when should we implement article 50?’. I wouldn’t be in a rush.”



He said there was also no hurry because elections in France and Germany next year meant it was unclear which leaders the prime minister would be negotiating with.