"One thing that is certain is that there is no certainty," Jagoe’s take on the UK's Brexit vote. Jagoe added that there had been a sense within government that UK people would not vote to leave.

"I'd been in UK four times this year before the Brexit vote and each time I got a stronger belief they were going to leave," he told those gathered at a Muskerry Macra na Feirme event implications of Brexit on Irish Agriculture. The event was held on Friday evening last.

"However a level of complacency had crept into the corridors of power so the actual result took many politicians by surprise," he said.

Payments

With regard to Irish farmers fears on the UK's contributions to the CAP funds, Jagoe allayed fears somewhat stating that the majority of the UK money is used for direct payments.

“UK money goes towards research rather so wouldn't have a huge effect on single farm payments,” he said.

Opinion poll

In relation to the vote itself, Jagoe said the fact that the UK rarely holds referendums resulted in the electorate taking a different view on the vote. Jagoe added that there is no legal basis to the referendum until the British prime minister decides to enact an article of European law to take the UK out of the European Union.

“There was no referendum culture in UK, so they treated it like an opinion poll. As it stands the referendum has no statutory basis so it was an opinion poll. It is something their parliament must decide now, when to trigger Article 50, it may be 2018 at earliest,” he said.

Jagoe did warn that the instability within the EU could see other member states patience tested and they could push the UK out before a time that they want to leave.

"There is a growing feeling that if there is continuing instability in the EU because of Britain indecisiveness in terms of setting a date to leave the EU then other EU members could invoke Article 7 which could be used to push UK out".

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