British MPs will “live to regret” their historic vote on Tuesday to find the government in contempt, the leader of the UK House of Commons has warned.

Andrea Leadsom, a member of Theresa May’s cabinet, also said that she backed the prime minister to remain in office “at the moment” — rekindling speculation about a possible leadership challenge.

Her comments came after the government suffered two notable parliamentary defeats on Tuesday. First, MPs voted to hold the government in contempt for not complying with an earlier request to publish its full Brexit legal advice. Then they voted to give themselves a free hand in deciding any plan B, if Mrs May’s Brexit deal is defeated next week.

Mrs Leadsom said that the government would now publish its Brexit legal advice at 11.30am on Wednesday. But she insisted the government had been right to defend the principle that legal advice from the attorney-general should remain confidential.

“Going forward, not only will government ministers be very careful about what they ask law officers to give advice on, but law officers themselves will be very reluctant to give any advice to government that they might then see published on the front pages of the newspapers,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Frankly, I think any parliamentarian who wants at some point in the future to be in government is going to live to regret their vote last night.”

MPs’ other demand — that they should be able to amend the government’s plan B — is seen as reducing the chances of Britain leaving the EU without a deal, because most MPs are against such a scenario. However, Mrs Leadsom said that the possibility remained, and that the vote “could either make no deal more likely or indeed less likely.”

Asked if Mrs May was the right person to lead the government, even if she lost a key Commons vote next week, Mrs May said, “She certainly is, at the moment . . . I have never, and will not start, predicting the future.”

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