Should the UK sign trade deals to open markets for British beef, lamb and dairy farmers?

There was little suspense in this one: voters lined up behind striking new trade deals for British farmers by a margin so lopsided it left almost no coalition of opposition to speak of. The result reads less as a contested judgment than as a rare moment of cross-generational agreement on what post-Brexit trade policy should actually be for.

If there's a wrinkle in the consensus, it sits with the 35-44 age group, who split much more evenly than anyone else on the ballot, breaking against the tide that saw every other age band vote resoundingly yes. It's a curious dent rather than a rival camp — no other cohort came close to matching that ambivalence, and women here backed the deals unanimously, suggesting whatever hesitation exists is generational rather than gendered.

The vote echoes the wider argument that has followed the UK since it regained an independent trade policy: whether new agreements with the likes of Switzerland, Australia or the CPTPP genuinely deliver for British agriculture, or simply expose it to fresh competition. Here, at least, the instinct was to back the NFU's reading of the Swiss deal as a hard-won win rather than a risk.

The one note of caution came from within the yes camp itself: the floor's top voice for the motion argued deals are "at the heart of a capitalist society, though we should take care not to undermine domestic production," singling out China and India as lines not to cross — a yes with conditions attached, even as the chamber backed it almost to a person.

If this chamber is any guide, the political fight over trade deals is being won on the specifics — Switzerland, beef, sparkling wine — even where the abstract argument over globalisation remains unresolved.