For nearly a decade my constituents have been told to put up with austerity in the name of the national interest. We were told the nation was broke, so grandmothers had to be forced out of their family homes by the bedroom tax, council workers had to lose their jobs, crimes had to go unsolved, disabled people had to lose financial support, NHS walk-in centres had to close, wages had to flatline with workers reliant on Redcar’s new food banks, and our steelworks had to close with no government bailout. These measures alone are enough to make us angry and resentful, particularly while other areas seemed to prosper and government investment continued to flow elsewhere.

Yet we learned yesterday that there is, after all, money magically available for a “programme of national renewal” for areas like mine – on the condition I vote for Theresa May’s Brexit deal. It’s amazing how much money, which should have been distributed on the basis of need and fairness, can suddenly be found to bribe MPs to vote for a deal that was dismissed by the largest parliamentary margin in history.

Considering the oft-levelled Tory charge that Labour likes to “throw money at a problem”, the prime minister seems to have become reliant on using bungs to get herself out of a fix. First the £1bn to the DUP to buy their support after an unnecessary election. Then billions of pounds thrown at preparing for a “no-deal” scenario. Now she has found money to bribe areas like mine, too. This government is not just lost and in a mess over Brexit; it is totally bereft of a moral compass.

It also confirms what many of us knew all along. That austerity was not an economic necessity but a political choice, and that those areas and communities that suffered the most were the ones that were the lowest priority for this Tory government. Offering MPs a few baubles for future election leaflets after a decade which saw £6bn taken from public spending in the north is grotesque, and no self-respecting MP with any integrity should allow this offer to influence their vote.

It’s quite common in countries such as the US for “pork-barrel” politics like this to have a role – but we don’t do that sort of thing here. If Brexit is about Britain taking back control and a return of our great democracy and sovereignty, then I’m afraid this is not what British democracy should look like. It’s squalid and grubby and demeans our politics. For the prime minister to have the audacity to say another referendum – a means by which to check whether the public really want to go through with the greatest economic and constitutional change this country has faced since the war – would undermine democracy is especially laughable when she treats our democracy as something that can be bought and sold.

The critical argument against accepting her bribe is that a short-term bung will not fix the structural and economic problems in areas like mine. The solutions require long-term investment in economic development, skills, industry and manufacturing. Yet the government’s own impact assessment showed that it was areas like mine, and the north-east region in general, which would be the hardest hit by Brexit. Accepting Theresa May’s deal will actually mean selling out the areas that we represent as well as the wider national interest. No one should do that for the vague promise of a short-term fix.

It is clear that austerity was not a necessity but a political choice. MPs now have to decide whether to make it worse with a Tory Brexit or go back to the people and ask them to put an end to this madness.

• Anna Turley is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Redcar