Create new tab on the MainWidgetArea without using the "new tab" button on UI

I am currently building a JupyterLab extension in which will have a button. When I press this button, I want to open up a new tab containing a blank JupyterNotebook, snap this new tab to the left side of the panel, and snap the original tab containing the button on the right half of the panel.

Example of the result I would like to see:

Is there a simple method or class I can instantiate to achieve this result?