Foreign Secretary: Brexit would have "very negative impact on the UK"

Conservative Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond - who has a longstanding reputation as a eurosceptic, has said some rather interesting things to the House of Commons Europe scrutiny committee: 

"The exit of a major country, the second-largest economy in the European Union, would have potentially very serious ramifications for the European Union and what its future looked like. But a British exit would also have a very significant impact on the UK.

It would require us to undo decades of thinking about how we drive and power the UK economy, how we ensure the standard of living of British people, how we protect national security.

I am sure, certainly in the short term, it would have some very negative impact on the UK.

How we would be able to regroup and move forward would be something the history books will ultimately determine.

But at the moment it looks like a very big set of challenges that the UK would face"