Boffins at Oxford University have warned Prime Minister Theresa May that a hard Brexit could create a “brain drain” and threaten the UK’s dominant position in the race to develop driverless cars.

The distinguished head of the university’s Mobile Robotics Group, Paul Newman, issued the warning in a strongly-worded letter to the Government.

He said that if the UK doesn’t guarantee EU citizens already living and working in the country the right to remain, it threatened the university’s ability to attract and recruit world-leading team players for pioneering projects such as his.

And he suggested that if the government did force EU citizens out of the country, he may be forced to move his robotics research and development group elsewhere in Europe.

He wrote: “I do not believe I can sustain the UK’s position in this race if I cannot bring the right people to the UK and let them build careers here.

“Careless legislation that negates our efforts to build excellence and generate wealth in the UK from technical leadership would cause me to reconsider where I run and build such a group.”

Newman’s Oxford RobotCar project has been at the heart of the government’s interest in intelligent mobility.

His all electric, zero emission RobotCar is a modified Nissan LEAF. Lasers and cameras are mounted around the vehicle and a computer which performs all the calculations necessary to plan, regulate speed and avoid obstacles, is docked in the boot. Externally it’s hard to tell the car apart from any other on the road.

After plotting a destination in the dashboard-mounted control iPad the car drives itself but at any time the driver can take back control by touching the brake – rather like cruise control in regular production cars.

Research for Robotics Week last summer indicated that a quarter of adults in the UK think the biggest benefit of driverless cars will be fewer road accidents, while one in five adults think driverless cars would make road rage less of a problem.