This matters.
I am told that the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill and the attorney general Geoffrey Cox informed Cabinet that if at the end of the Letwin process MPs pass a motion mandating the PM to pursue a new route through the Brexit mess – perhaps a referendum, or membership of the customs union, or some other softer future relationship with the EU – the PM and government would be in breach of the ministerial code and the law if they fail to follow MP’s instructions.
Or to put it another way, the PM would be obliged to endeavour to negotiate with the EU the revealed will of MPs, even if that revealed will involved a Brexit delay that requires the UK to participate in May’s European parliamentary elections, or is at odds with the Tories’ manifesto.
So the impression created by the PM that she could ignore the results of the indicative votes process is not true – or so ministers who attended Cabinet tell me.
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