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The author of Article 50 has said that no other country would be "stupid" enough to leave the EU after Brexit.

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard predicted that the UK would one day rejoin the union. "My children will certainly see us back in again," he added.

"It will take quite a long time 10 to 20 years before we say, with our tail between our legs, 'Can we come back now?'"

The crossbench peer told the Sunday Times it was the "last great benefit" the UK had given to the group of 27 nations by putting off others who might be tempted to go

"It will ensure that no one will be as stupid as us again," he said.

(Image: PA)

He said that without the UK the rest of the EU would change becoming "a little more protectionist, a little less open market, a little less outward-looking."

The peer drafted the text in case a fascist leader took charge of a country and quit "in a huff " but he didn't expect it would ever be used.

"It wasn't long after [Jörg] Haider had been in power in Austria," he said. "He was very far right, and we were worried about the paradox that we had very good criteria for testing whether a country could join do you have an open market, a free press, an independent judiciary? but once a country was in, it was possible to roll those back.

(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

"We imagined a situation in which we withdrew a member's voting rights because of a move towards autocracy, and in a huff that leader stormed out, leaving a chaotic legal situation."

(Image: Getty Images)

He argued that Theresa May's triggering of Article 50 "without being clear of where we wanted to go" had been a "very serious" mistake.

"Article 50 wasn't used in the way it was intended to be, so we are stepping out into the unknown," he said. "The article says one should take account of the framework for the future relationship [in the divorce terms]. There wasn't a framework so they didn't."