Constitutionally, the Queen is meant to support the position of Her Majesty's Government - as David Cameron is pro-Remain, in public she must support that.
In private she has the constitutional right to be kept informed, to be consulted, to encourage, and to warn. The Prime Minister has a weekly, private, unrecorded and unminuted meeting with the Queen where they can frankly exchange their views. I would expect she has told him her opinion during those meetings.
Does the queen’s wishes (leave/remain) have bearing, or is she obliged to follow the results?
I have to be careful answering this - I have met the Queen and spoken to her on a number of occasions (I'm friends with two of her sons - having gone to school with the Prince of Wales, and having served alongside the Duke of York). I am not supposed to disclose anything Her Majesty has told me that could be controversial. So I need to make it 100% clear that I have never discussed this issue with the Queen and so cannot disclose anything she has told me.
Having said that, my feeling is that she would be personally supportive of the Leave campaign, on the basis that British sovereignty must remain supreme in the United Kingdom. That is my opinion, not based on anything she or any other member of the Royal family has told me.
There have been some reports in the British press that suggests this is her position as well, but the people who disclosed that information were not following the rules that I actually do do my utmost to respect.
Having said all of the above, Her Majesty would be allowed to act on her own behalf if she believed that the result of her not doing so would be absolutely disastrous for the United Kingdom - but I don't believe that she would regard the current situation anywhere near that seriously. If Europe was a Nazi state, or something, she might intervene - but she would not do so just because she disagreed with a decision, or even if she had moderate doubts about it. Except in a disastrous situation, she would respect the decisions of Parliament, her government, and her Prime Minister, as they are elected by the people of the United Kingdom and Britain is a Constitutional Monarchy where the democratic right of the people to elect a Parliament is a core right.
thank you for your very informative comments on this issue (and many others)
also, I just looked at your profile page for the first time... what a tremendous page, so moving and informative... thank you for that, too
Thank you for the insight.
Europe may not be going Nazi, but IMHO, if they don’t do something on the immigration issue, they’re heading towards sharia.
You've met the Queen? Cool! Can you confirm Paul McCartney's assessment that she's a "pretty nice girl but she doesn't have a lot to say"?
But on a more serious note...I read just a day or two ago in at least one British paper that she's recently been asking people close to her to give three good reasons to vote "remain".
Pretty interesting if true.