The question put to the British people in the referendum was: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”. A clear majority voted to leave. Was this a cynical and basically fatuous exercise in wasting everyone's time for many months prior to the ballot because whatever the British people decided could be trumped by (some) self-interested MPs (jobs, pensions, travel and other perks)? I think not.

As Jacob Rees-Moog explains:

Parliament passed the referendum bill under the clear understanding from David Cameron (a fervent Remainer) that Article 50 would be exercised immediately.

The then-PM’s view, as stated to Parliament, as stated to the country, was that he would exercise Article 50 on Friday morning.”

So that has been slightly delayed but that doesn’t change the fact that Parliament gave the responsibility to decide whether we remained in the European Union to the British people and the British people decided to go.

The advisory aspect was advice for the Queen (who else? certainly not parliament. That would have been ridiculous) to proceed with the democratic wishes of the British people.