"Obviously a new prime minister will select his own cabinet and all of us will remain in office until that point and then the new prime minister will make his decision," Hammond said in response to a question about whether British finance minister George Osborne would remain in post.

"We will be less able to protect Gibraltar's interests, not to defend Gibraltar's territory, of course we can do that, but to protect Gibraltar's interests if we are not in the European Union," Hammond said when asked about what would happen to Gibraltar, a British enclave in southern Spain which Madrid said it would seek to jointly govern with London after the Brexit vote.

"Gibraltar depends on thousands and thousands of Spanish workers crossing that border every day and any disruption to that flow will be extremely damaging to the Gibraltar economy."

Hammond also said it would be "catastrophic" for Britain to lose access to the European single market after it voted to leave the European Union.

He said candidates to succeed David Cameron as Conservative Party leader and therefore as prime minister would have to make clear where they stood on the trade-off between controlling migration and retaining single market access, Reuters reported.

Hammond said he would not be a candidate to lead the party and the country, Tasnim reported.

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