An initial government review has revealed Whitehall has only 20 “active hands-on” trade negotiators, and will be up against 600 experienced trade specialists for the European commission, Sir Simon Fraser, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office disclosed.

Fraser made his remarks at a foreign affairs select committee session at which another former senior diplomat, Sir Christopher Meyer, warned Brexit may end up with not just Scotland leaving the union, but the island of Ireland being reunited. England would then be left in an alliance with Wales.



He said the coming trade negotiations are painstaking line-by-line, sector-by-sector work, and the current lack of capacity would require the UK government to search for skilled negotiators outside Whitehall.

He also disclosed that internal Brexit teams are being set up in every Whitehall department to report through a boosted European secretariat in the Cabinet Office led by Oliver Letwin.

He added the UK will have to boost its staff in Brussels to prepare for the Brexit negotiations, as well as increase staff in embassies, as it fights to make the UK’s voice heard in a new competition with the EU, the US and other countries.

Fraser said in his call for extra staff: “We will be competing in other countries for attention if we leave the EU and we will have to work much harder to make our voice heard so we will have to be more active.” He also warned the now real threat of a break-up of the union with Scotland “will diminish our weight and international standing in the world,” as well as have implications for British Overseas Territories and Gibraltar.

Fraser was Foreign Office permanent secretary from 2010 to 2015 as well as business department permanent secretary.

He added that it was sensible for the UK to seek to pause invoking Article 50 until the beginning of the autumn to give the government more time to work out its initial bargaining position on Brexit. He accepted some EU countries had difficult domestic audiences and pressure may mount to demand clarity from the UK and a start to the talks. In addition, he said, people in the UK will start to expect the outcome of the referendum to be put into practice.

“Legally speaking, it is only the British government that can trigger this process,” Fraser said.

As to the talks ahead, he said: “The dilemma that needs to be resolved will be the trade-off between access to the single market and the obligations that come with it.”

He suggested there may yet be scope for a rethink in the EU on free movement, commenting: “Although the issue of free movement has come to a head in UK, similar concerns existed across Europe. It is perfectly legitimate to put on the table for discussion the management of the principle of free movement.”

Sir Christopher Meyer, UK ambassador to Washington until 2003, also suggested Brexit talks may lead to a European-wide rethink on free movement of workers. He said Brexit represented “a shock across the EU and reactions to it may provide new opportunities. Without in any way impugning the principle of free movement, there does seem to me to be a tide to be caught across the EU that responds to the question that ‘we have a problem with free movement inside the Schengen area’. We need to tackle this all of us together.”

He suggested there may yet be a way for the UK to remain in the EU: “Sometimes I have a fantasy of our coming along with our concerns about free movement and immigration – the clear message from the referendum – and somehow getting what we want or something we can put back to the British people and ask: ‘Is this good enough?’”

Meyer also warned Brexit may trigger a referendum in Northern Ireland on whether or not to unify with the Republic. He warned: “It could end up with a situation where Scotland has gone off independent, trading in the euro, and a united island of Ireland. It could be the result.”

Fraser also said the UK government will need to look at the future of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. He said: “One of the purposes was to regain control of the border yet it was made clear that this particular border was not going to be subject to control, so this is a conundrum.” Meyer described the issue as a nightmare that had been left unanswered by the Leave campaign.

Unlike Fraser, Meyer suggested the Brexit negotiations may not need to start until 2017. He said: “Nothing can happen until we have a new prime minister with a clear idea internally of what he or she wants to do. We may well not be ready until 2017 and the Germans and French then urge the UK to hold off until its elections are complete.”

Meyer added that the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, is very worried he will be beaten in this autumn’s constitutional election by Bepe Grillo’s Five Star movement, a group opposed to the EU. He said if Renzi is beaten, all bets are off so there was a case in terms of talks where “we hang loose, trust in God and keep our powder dry”.

He added that despite the ban on informal talks between the UK and EU until it invokes Article 50, “nature abhors a vacuum and I bet you there will be informal contacts. Officials will be in the undergrowth getting rid of the weeds”.