Charles Day

Will Britain really have a debt to the EU after Brexit?

If a lawyer advises you to pay money which you do not owe, and you do so, then you can sue that lawyer to compensate you for the loss. That’s because the lawyer owes his client a duty to not give wrong advice. Does a politician or a journalist owe that duty? Can we sue them if their advice is wrong?

We need to know an answer to this as a nation, because far too many people who should know better, are wrongly advising the British people that they owe a ‘debt’ to the EU. The people who use the word are not using it metaphorically, indeed how could they, we’ve been a net contributor to the club for years – there’s no moral debt. These people, like the MP Chris Bryant, often describe it as a ‘legal debt’, presumably to make it sound more believable.

Before giving advice a lawyer would have to consider the evidence.

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