The top lawyer in David Cameron's government said, at the launch of the BiE report on Brexit, that ‘the legal challenge' to the Art 50 trigger of the departure from the EU was 'quite finely balanced' and he awaits 'with great interest, to see what comes out of it’.

‘But even the process of starting article 50 – the very beginning of the unravelling of our relationship with the EU – appears to be fraught with difficulties,’ he continued. ‘The government will have to resort to a massive number of Henry VIII clauses to give it the maximum power and flexibility without parliament’s involvement.’

The former Attorney General added that he could not ‘entirely rule out that there won’t be a reference to the European Court of Justice on its enforceability'.

Dominic Grieve also laid bare the immense complications in the process of unravelling a 45-year relationship with the EU.

But, on the other hand, he was ‘optimistic’ about the UK remaining a signatory to the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, despite noting that ‘there is clearly an undercurrent of hostility to anything that is foreign'.

A detailed account of his presentation at the BiE launch has been published in the Solicitors Journal.