Having had some quite tough words for people making that case, it is right to acknowledge how positive that contribution is and how important that work is. I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that if the starting point for a campaign is that “you are wrong, and we are right”, it is very unlikely to get a hearing. I can see some hon. Members shaking their head, and I accept that there are different nuances to that campaign. I accept that there are activists and spokespeople for the campaign who do not take that approach, but some of the right hon. Gentleman’s leading advocates and spokespeople take that exact approach and have spent two and half years telling 52% of the country that they have betrayed a generation and that they are wrong.
It is with sadness rather than anger that I say that it is not going to work. It will not provide a sustainable future for this country, just as the words of the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) do not provide any comfort or reassurance to the 48% of people, including a number of her own constituents, who voted remain and who feel passionately that the future is being taken away from them and their children.
I want to turn my attention to a no-deal outcome, because it is increasingly likely that that will be the default option as we approach March 2019 and as we prove unable to agree on an alternative course of action. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on the impact that this would have, and I agree with the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) as well. The businesses in my constituency that will be most affected by this, by tariffs and by problems at borders are, like his, not the big companies—for example, the Heinz factory that employs 1,200 people in my constituency and more in the supply chain—because they have the ability to plan for what comes next and have been doing contingency planning for some time. They have political clout: should there be queues at lorry parks, they will be able to get their products through. The hardest hit will be the smaller companies that have perishable goods and do not have the clout and contingency funds, such as the Kings Quality Foods meat production company in my constituency. I agree with the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington that many of these very good companies will go under if we do not take action now to prevent a no-deal Brexit.
On the way down here last week, I was stopped at the train station in my Wigan constituency by a mum whose son has a life-limiting illness: Duchenne muscular dystrophy. That young boy, Jack, has become extremely well-known in Wigan. His parents have founded a charity called Joining Jack and have been campaigning for a cure. There is no cure as yet, but there is medication that can delay the degenerative effects of this horrible, cruel illness. She is desperately worried about what is about to happen; like many families around the country, they are discussing stockpiling medicine. Every dose that that young boy misses knocks weeks off his life. Conservative Members on the hard end of Tory Brexit are playing serious, high-stakes poker with people’s lives, and we should be concerned about how to stop it.
I am also concerned about food. Some 30% of our food comes from the EU, and many of my constituents, like those of many other hon. Members, are already accessing food banks because they cannot afford food prices. What do we do when inflation and the price of food goes up as the value of the pound falls?
Like Ciaran, I am concerned about the impact of what we are doing to Ireland and Northern Ireland. It is often called “the Ireland problem”, but as they rightly keep telling us, it is a problem that we created for them. I was serving in the shadow Cabinet in the run-up to the referendum, and I spent months going around the country, mostly in northern towns, trying to convince people that remain was the best option. Apart from the times when we raised it, the issue of Northern Ireland and the border came up only once. Here we are with just days to go until we leave the European Union, and it seems that there is a group of people who think that that is not an issue. Ciaran can tell them that it absolutely is.
There are profound questions to ask about the implications for energy and our pensions. We ought to work together to ensure we have the legal tools available to prevent the outcome of no deal.