Chances of Brexit being reversed are one in three, says EU president Donald Tusk

‘It is becoming increasingly clear the UK’s exit from the EU will look completely different than the Brexit that was promoted’

The chances of the UK cancelling Brexit are as high as 30 per cent, the president of the European Council has said.

A second referendum would be likely to result in a vote to remain in the EU, Donald Tusk also said, adding there was significant reason to believe the leave vote could be reversed.

Mr Tusk, a long-time opponent of Brexit, argued the real debate in the UK about the consequences began only after the 2016 referendum.

He said it was still possible EU membership could again be put to the people, despite suggesting there was a “crisis in leadership” among remainers.

Labour MPs are calling on Jeremy Corbyn to pull out of “toxic” Brexit talks with the government within days.

“Paradoxically, Brexit awoke in Great Britain a pro-European movement,” he told the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza in an interview shared with The Guardian.

“After the British referendum in 2016, I thought that if we recognise that the case is closed, it will be the end. Today the chance that Brexit will not happen is, in my opinion, 20-30 per cent. That’s a lot.

“From month to month, it is becoming increasingly clear that the UK’s exit from the EU will look completely different than the Brexit that was promoted,” he added. “I see no reason to capitulate.”

Opinion polls over the past six months have shown a shift towards a narrow remain majority, but analysts say another vote could go either way.

Mr Tusk said he had been moved by the anti-Brexit march in London earlier this year.

And the decision by David Cameron to call the referendum was a political miscalculation that came “at the worst possible moment”.

“If the 2016 referendum was able to change the result of the referendum in 1975, why can it not be changed again? Nothing is irreversible until people believe it is.”

The original leaving date of 29 March was postponed until October after MPs repeatedly rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

He admitted that “almost every day” he heard from those who said the UK should be cut off from the EU if it was unable to come to a deal.

Nothing is irreversible until people believe it is

Donald Tusk

“My main task is to make sure that the EU has shown patience despite being felt in many places on the continent these negative emotions,” he said.

“I say to colleagues to wait a while longer. The deadline expires in October, but I will persuade them – if necessary – not to close the calendar. There is no place for rush to Brexit. Churchill used to say that a problem postponed is partially solved.”

Mr Tusk told the European parliament last month that Brexit could be stopped, and that the postponement could give the British time to rethink.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The British people voted to leave the EU in the biggest democratic exercise in our history and the government is focused on delivering that result.

“MPs have already voted on a second referendum a number of times and rejected it.”