The bill was passed comfortably, 521 to 73, after accelerated sittings in both houses of parliament. The agreement, which was finalized last week, is a major milestone more than four years after the UK voted to leave the EU and after months of interest negotiations.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who opened the debate on Wednesday, told MPs that the agreement would “open a new chapter in our national history” and enable the UK to “control our laws and our national lot ‘to take.’
The government bill is now expected to be passed to the House of Lords, the main house of parliament; if passed, it is expected to receive Royal Assent.
The agreement has already received preliminary approval from the European Union, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel formally signing the agreement on Wednesday.
The European Parliament is expected to examine the agreement later before it can be formally ratified by the European Union.
The agreement reached with Brussels includes a new business and security relationship with the UK’s largest trading partner after months of stalemate over areas such as fishing quotas, how the UK will use state aid to support UK businesses after Brexit, and legal oversight of any agreement struck.
The deal, which protects Britain’s tariff- and quota-free access to the bloc’s consumers, saves the UK from the most serious potential consequences of Brexit as it fights a crippling pandemic.
It also appears that the agreement mostly covers trade in goods, where the UK has a deficit with its neighbors in the EU, but excludes major service industries such as finance, where it currently enjoys a surplus.
Opposition leader Keir Starmer, who is campaigning against Brexit, said the bill was’ thin ‘and did not protect trade in the services sector, but that the Labor Party would support it, given the devastating alternative: to end the transition period without’ to leave an agreement.
The bill, which is 80 pages long, as opposed to the more than 1,200 pages of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), has also been criticized for being passed.
“Parliament is considering implementing the TCA less than 48 hours before it is to be implemented – so late that ‘no-deal’ is the only possible alternative, and that it will be extremely limited for those directly affected by it,” Brigid Fowler, senior researcher at the Hansard Society, wrote.
The vote comes against the backdrop of increasing cases of Covid-19 in the UK, as a more contagious variant of the virus moves across the country.
Hanna Ziady and Julia Horowitz contributed to this story.