Should the UK voluntarily re-enact the bit of Brexit everyone agreed was a terrible idea?

A SKETCH of todays tomfoolery in the Commons by ChatGPT

This evening, I idly asked ChatGPT, “Write a political sketch in the style of Rob Hutton lampooning today’s tied vote on a ludicrous ten minute rule motion requiring the government to negotiate a customs union. Parody the policy using the expert advice here.”

With apologies to Rob, it’s really quite good, so here it is. You can find the debate here and the video here. I very lightly edited it. It says quite a lot about generative AI for good and ill.

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In the Commons today, MPs gathered for the great constitutional question of our age: should Britain voluntarily re-enact the bit of Brexit everyone agreed was a terrible idea?

A Ten Minute Rule Motion—Parliament’s equivalent of a student union resolution but with fewer mature participants—demanded that the government negotiate a customs union with the EU. Quite why was left delicately ambiguous, like a colonial-era map labelled “Here Be Dragons”.

The House divided. And somehow ended up precisely 100–100, proving that even after eight years, Parliament is still deeply committed to the idea that absolutely nothing should ever be resolved.

Enter the Motion’s Proposer: The Honourable Member for Backwards Trade Policy

The proposer rose with the solemnity of a man announcing the invention of bread.
“Britain,” he said, “needs supply-chain certainty.”

What supply-chains needed was not clear, but apparently it involved re-adopting all the EU’s tariffs while having absolutely no say over them—a sort of geopolitical Direct Debit in which Brussels gets to decide the amount.

He explained that joining a customs union would ease friction, which was brave, given that the IEA’s economists have pointed out that it mostly adds friction to trade with 80% of the world outside the EU—but why spoil the moment with facts? After all, nothing says “global Britain” like surrendering your trade policy to a committee you can’t attend.

Opposition benches: a moment of nostalgia

Then rose the Shadow Minister for Genteel Protectionism.

“We must restore our manufacturing base,” she cried, apparently unaware that a customs union’s tariff wall functions like a fondue set: warm, comforting, but mostly designed to protect the cheese inside from foreign competition.

She spoke longingly of the EU’s common commercial policy, describing it as though it were the NHS: universal, benevolent, and staffed exclusively by angels. She did not mention that a customs union would stop the UK signing its own trade deals—a small oversight, like forgetting to mention your wedding is non-optional and legally binding on all guests.

Government benches: confusion reigns

When the Minister rose to respond, he looked like a man just told he must defend a policy drafted in biro on the back of a Pret receipt.

“A customs union,” he said, “is incompatible with an independent trade policy.”
This is true, which made it by some margin the most radical thing said all afternoon.

He added that, according to the IEA, a permanent customs union would increase consumer prices, divert trade from more efficient global suppliers, and ensure Britain is a rule-taker without influence—the trifecta of bad policy, like nationalising Greggs.

Someone behind him muttered, “Didn’t we do this already?”

Someone else whispered, “Twice.”

The vote: a dramatic anticlimax

The House divided. Tension mounted. A nation waited.
Was this the moment Parliament would finally decide what it thought about Brexit?

No.

It was a tie.

A tie!

Like the Commons itself had collectively shrugged and said, “Dunno mate, up to you.”

The Speaker, custodian of tradition and breaker of parliamentary deadlock, cast her vote for the motion “in accordance with precedent”—confirming that even in the dying embers of the Brexit story, the only thing capable of decisive action is Erskine May.

Economics: the bit nobody in the Chamber read

A customs union, says the IEA, is a marvellous instrument if your goals include:

• Raising import costs by preventing the UK from sourcing from the cheapest global suppliers.

• Restricting autonomy so Britain cannot sign trade deals unless Brussels gives permission.

• Taking EU tariff rules wholesale, like downloading the Terms & Conditions of a software update you no longer use.

• Reinforcing protectionist lobbies, in the name of “certainty”, though the certainty is mostly higher prices.

It is, economically speaking, the equivalent of joining a gym that bans you from using any of the equipment and charges you for classes you didn’t attend.

And so the House rose

Thus ended the great debate of our time:

Should Britain return to 2016, or would it rather go all the way back to 1973?

No one knows.

Least of all the MPs who voted for the motion, against it, abstained, or got lost in the division lobby trying to remember why any of this was still happening.

But take heart: the government survived, the Speaker saved the day, and the UK remains—however shakily—in possession of its own trade policy.

Until the next Ten Minute Rule Motion.