Brexit could be delayed until late 2019

Mr Mackay’s statement came yesterday after the Chancellor moved to calm fears of a post-Brexit funding gap.

“Clearly if we stopped making contributions to the European Union there will be money available to be invested in our own economy”, Hammond said when reporters asked about Britain’s funding arrangements after Britain’s departure from the EU.

Its president, biologist Venki Ramakrishnan, said “we have been hearing anecdotal reports of people not being willing to collaborate with certain United Kingdom collaborators because they weren’t sure that they would be able to stay for the full duration of the grant”.

The measure, they say, will support economic development, with assurances set out by the Treasury including agri-environment schemes signed before the chancellor’s upcoming Autumn Statement.

Last week, experts warned that the United Kingdom faced a recession after the first snapshot of business activity since the vote showed it had been knocked sharply off course by the result.

Hammond said organizations “want reassurance about the flow of funding they will receive”, and the announcement would help provide “stability and certainty”.

Prime Minister Theresa May had been expected to formally start Britain’s exit in early 2017 amid political pressure to deliver on the vote and to salve divisions inflicted on her ruling Conservative Party by the June referendum.

The vow applies to agricultural funds until 2020, structural and investment projects signed before the government’s budget update this autumn, and university bids won under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation pr ogramme.

The announcement means farmers will continue to benefit from common agricultural policy payouts – worth almost £2.4bn in 2015 – in the next four years. The Chancellor is expected to develop a new scheme to support farmers once the United Kingdom quits the EU.

“But the best way to guarantee the jobs, investment, services and projects all over the country which depend on this funding beyond 2020 is by maintaining Scotland’s relationship with the European Union”.

Funding would also continue for farmers who now receive subsidies and other payments under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) worth almost 4 billion U.S.dollars a year. Many would have assumed that the process to leave the European Union would have begun as soon the final vote on the referendum was counted and should already been in the process of cutting ties with the EU.