There won’t be many occasions on this or any other afternoon where I find reason to thank the Brexit Party, but I will make an exception today for thanking them for the clarity of their motion, which specifically calls for a ‘no deal’ Brexit and to hell with the consequences for communities like Torfaen. [Interruption.] Yes, it does. To combine this new-found zeal for no deal with a refusal to acknowledge the need for a confirmatory vote is to rewrite the history of the 2016 referendum and is utterly undemocratic. Voters in Torfaen were told that a deal would be the easiest thing in the world, that countries would be battering down our doors to do exciting trade deals with us. Hundreds of millions flooding into the NHS—that is the illusion that was sold on the doorstep. We have not yet voted on reality.

The people who rely on the manufacturing sector in my constituency were not told that the price for a 'leave' vote could be their livelihoods—the work and the glue that holds communities together. Just last week, Make UK told the Brexit select committee that there was a direct link between politicians talking up the prospect of a 'no deal' and British firms losing customers overseas and British people losing their jobs. This cannot be dismissed as project fear—this is project fact. This is happening now. Plants are closing, jobs are going, communities are facing bleak futures. And this is just what the prospect of a 'no deal' is doing to us. Imagine what happens when that prospect becomes a reality, and that is what this motion before us today calls for.

At the very moment that our manufacturers are saying to us that calling for a ‘no deal’ Brexit is an act of economic vandalism, this is the moment when the Brexit Party table a motion calling for it. This is also the time when Boris Johnson launches his leadership campaign, which firmly puts 'no deal' on the table as a potential outcome of him becoming Prime Minister. And with another leadership hopeful supporting 150 per cent Katie Hopkins’s racist smear against the mayor of London, the toxicity of the Brexit debate shows no sign of abating. Now, I don’t expect I’ll convince the Brexit Party of the economic arguments against their chosen course today, but I do hope to convince them of something. This is, after all, the week in which we remember the death of our colleague, Jo Cox—a young female MP who spoke up for diversity as a strength and who was assassinated on the streets by a far-right terrorist. The language we choose to use in this Chamber matters. It really matters. The language our Members and supporters use on the street and online matters. It really matters. The labels we give other politicians and other people in our leaflets, our newspaper columns and Twitter feeds really matter. You will not find a more vocal critic of wrongdoers inside their own party than me. I will never excuse threatening, bullying or prejudicial behaviour by anyone. So, I want to give the leader of the Brexit Party that same opportunity today to clarify where he and his party stand on this. Since Mark Reckless accused me in this Chamber of disrespecting my constituents, I have been met with a sustained volley of abuse from a small but very vocal element locally.