A bill requiring the government to begin negotiations on joining a bespoke customs union with the European Union has passed the first stage in the House of Commons.
On Tuesday, the Customs Union (Duty to Negotiate) Bill was tabled by the Liberal Democrats’ Europe spokesman Al Pinkerton.
Surprisingly, the vote ended in a 100-100 tie, the first instance of a tie since 2019, the BBC reports.
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This gave the Deputy Speaker Caroline Noakes the deciding vote, and she cast an aye vote on the bill “in order to allow for further debate.”
This is in line with parliamentary rules, which state that when a vote is tied the Speaker should cast the deciding vote “according to what was done in similar circumstances in the past” and that “where possible the issue should remain open for further discussion and no final decision should be made by a casting vote.”
Whilst the majority of Labour MPs abstained on the bill, 13 of the party’s MPs voted in favour of it, including Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler and Dame Meg Hillier.
Eighty-nine Conservative MPs and four members of Reform UK voted against the bill. Reform leader Nigel Farage did not vote.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said the vote was a “historic victory” for his party.
“The prime minister must now listen to Parliament and the public, drop his self-imposed red lines and finally go for proper growth through an ambitious trade deal with the EU,” he said.
However, the bill is highly unlikely to become law unless it gets the government’s backing. In their manifesto last year, Labour ruled out re-joining the existing EU customs union, and Sir Keir Starmer has recently said such a move was “not currently our policy”.
This is despite a seeming change in attitude towards Brexit from the government.
Keir Starmer recently called out “wild promises” from the Brexit campaign, whilst some ministers have called out the damage leaving the EU has done to the UK economy.