How a Churchill quote was “stitched up” to support Brexit

Dead people can’t sue or answer back. Maybe that’s why supporters of Brexit thought they could get away with fabricating a quote by Winston Churchill to support Britain leaving the European Union.

Increasingly doing the rounds in the lead-up to Britain’s EU referendum is a quote by Churchill which it is claimed he said to Parliament on 11 May 1953 when he was Britain’s Prime Minster.

The quote or variants of it, usually depicted alongside a photo of Churchill, is being heavily promoted on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and quoted in readers commentsin multiple newspapers and blogs, usually by UKIP supporters.

The quote is being used to prove that Churchill would never have supported Britain’s membership of the EU, and that if he were alive now, he would be against the concept of today’s European Union and vote for Brexit in June’s referendum.