British expats have gone to court today in a bid to keep their EU citizenship rights after Brexit .

The group of five UK nationals living in the Netherlands are hoping top EU judges will make a landmark ruling - that they claim could affect the millions of Brits back home too.

The ex-pats made an application today to a Dutch court in a bid to retain their current rights, which include being able to live and work in any other EU country and have the right to a pension.

Currently Theresa May has agreed British expats who already live in the EU can stay there.

But there is a big question mark over whether Brits living in Holland will be able to move to another country such as Germany or France.

There is a question mark over whether Brit expats will be able to move round the EU (
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Getty Images Europe)

Claimant Stephen Huyton, a company director who has lived in the Netherlands for 23 years, told The Guardian: "I did not make a lifestyle choice by moving here, I moved here for work.

"And when I came out I came out on a set of terms and conditions."

He added: "We have lived outside the UK for more than 15 years and so we were not allowed to vote in the referendum. So a lot of us really feel disenfranchised by the whole process."

The Dutch court will now decide in three weeks' time whether to refer the case to the European Court of Justice, according to British QC Jolyon Maugham, who kicked off and funded the project.

Barrister Mr Maugham claimed the case if it succeeds would apply to all British citizens, not just the 1.2million expats in the EU.

He said: "What the case asserts is if you are a UK citizen at the moment and you have EU citizenship rights, as a matter of law those rights cannot be taken away from you."

Theresa May secured a deal with the EU and Jean-Claude Juncker in December (
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REUTERS)

If the European Court of Justice were to decide in the claimants' favour, he said, "it would mean that everybody who is presently a British citizen - whether they live in the Netherlands or Stoke or Zimbabwe - would continue to enjoy the EU citizenship rights they presently have."

Mr Maugham said the case could prove one of the most important in history.

"It would give 64million UK citizens in the UK for the rest of their lives immensely valuable rights to live and work throughout Europe."

If successful the legal action would scupper Theresa May's strategy of wanting "reciprocal" rights - matching every right for UK citizens abroad with one for EU citizens in the UK.

But Mr Maugham said: "This is a case everybody should be able to get behind because it give all of us rights that we presently have."