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As we enter the second week of the most profound constitutional crisis in recent history, it is time to ask the question that really matters - what best meets the needs and aspiration of the British people - and is most likely to safeguard our jobs, our living standards and our public services.

As I will show today in my visit to a food bank in Liverpool and to Vauxhall Cars at Ellesmere Port, there is a direct line that takes us from a threat to our constitution to a threat to people’s employment and income.

In a poll by Hope not Hate in the past few days, 49 per cent of the British people - with just 16 per cent against - now say that a no deal Brexit on October 31 is bad for Britain.

And when people are asked to choose what they worry about most from a no deal, the potential collapse of the British car industry is, to them, the most glaring threat ahead and their number one fear.

A staggering 40 per cent of voters believe that a ‘no deal’ Brexit spells disaster for the motor industry. Our car production lines could simply seize up overnight amidst port hold ups and motorway pile ups.

(Image: PA)

It’s a fascinating almost bewildering fact that every car we produce in Britain has 30,000 components to it - and 15,000 of these parts come into the UK from outside Britain. In total 12,000 or 80% of UK-imported automotive components came from the EU last year.

So each and every day enough components to fill 1,100 lorries arrive at our ports - part of a global supply chain where components criss-cross Britain and Europe and where even a minor customs delay can be massively disruptive.

Take the Land Rover Discovery as an example. Key parts - its power steering, fuel injector, engine block and torque convertor - come from Germany.

Its coolant hoses and central control module come in by sea from the Czech Republic: the exhaust manifold from Hungary.

Its wiring protection system is from France and its front lighting and its shock absorbers from Poland.

The electronic control units come via Romania. In fact 40per cent of all its materials are imported from mainland Europe and its heating control panel from Ireland, another part of the EU.

As the European supply organisation reported last year the typical car has components produced in 15 countries.

Our car industry that depends on imported components is our biggest manufacturing employer with 180,000 working directly in car factories and 800,000 in total in the supply and distribution and retail chain.

(Image: Getty Images)

When in 2014, the Automotive Council drew up a list of the supply chain elements where the UK needed to be more self-sufficient, they found we relied on foreign imports for our engine castings, the metal frame for a car’s engine, seat components, alloy wheels, lighting, paint, bumpers and instrument clusters most of which are still components of a car imported from mainland Europe.

But if we need components from Europe to manufacture our cars, we need to sell the cars in Europe for British car plants to stay afloat.

And tariffs imposed on parts and even bigger tariffs on finished vehicles could easily make our exports uncompetitive. Last year 80 per cent of the cars produced in the UK were for export - and most of them to EU countries. In fact, of the 1.5million cars made in Britain only 280,000 of them are sold to British customers and so, without European sales, many jobs are at risk.

Japanese, Indian, Korean and American car makers have invested in Britain not because the British market is huge - we sell only 200,000 British-produced cars here - but because the European market is huge, worth more than a million British car sales a year, and those foreign car giants have, until now, seen Britain as the platform from which they sell into Europe and any fall out with the continent makes our chances of keeping all car plants intact much more difficult.

Sadly, this Brexit-imposed threat to the industry is mounting just at the time when billions of long-term investment decisions are about to be made – for electric cars, for driverless cars and for non-diesel cars – the jobs of tomorrow depend on the next generation of electric, driverless and non-diesel cars being made in Britain.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

Carlos Tavares, the boss of Vauxhall’s parent company PSA, has now said that while he would “prefer” production of a new version of the company’s Astra car to be at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant, “if the conditions are bad and I cannot make it profitable, then I have to protect the rest of the company and I will not do it”.

Indeed the society of motor manufacturers and traders has raised the prospect of “death by a thousand cuts”.

The 31st October cliff edge is portrayed by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage as the opportunity to show that we can stand alone and apart and display the old Dunkirk spirit - standing up to the evil and perfidious foreigners.

Instead it’s a self-inflicted wound – like putting a gun at your own head and threatening to fire if your opponents will not do your bidding. It is the biggest act of self-harm, with our economy - companies, products, people - pushed off the cliff edge into recession and bankruptcies.

That's why so many more of the British public than our politicians see - and what Boris Johnson has to be forced by public opinion to see - that, whether you were for or against Brexit, the no deal October 31 cliff edge has to be halted dead in its tracks.