Last week, I voted for Chuka Umunna’s amendment to the Queen’s Speech which sought to rule out withdrawal from the EU “without a deal”, and “set out proposals to remain within the customs union and single market”. It has hit the headlines not because of the merits or lack thereof, but instead because votes like mine are considered as a rebellion against Jeremy Corbyn.

We live in a time when the way I tie my shoelaces can somehow be misconstrued as an attack on Jeremy Corbyn. Let me be clear, nobody press-ganged me to vote for or against it on either side. Those who wrote the amendment didn’t even tell me about it. I sat in my office with the day’s debate on in the background, I listened to the arguments and made my decision as I got more and more infuriated by what was being said on the government benches.

What a novel approach, listening to the debate and deciding on the strength of argument – it’ll never catch on.

I’ll be damned if I am going to let the Tories decide what a good Brexit looks like

The final straw for me was the offering of Charlie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, a man for whom I usually have a lot of time. He followed Chuka and, referring to Chuka’s constituency he stated, “Streatham, of course, is a long way from the front line of Brexit, but Dover, which I represent, is on that front line.”

“We are all on the sodding front line of Brexit,” I shrieked out in my office. This is not about the fact that there might be some extra traffic problems in Dover as lorry-loads of goods face the possibility of new customs restrictions, it’s about what those customs restrictions mean for the people all over the country who work in the factories, farms and industries that make the things that go on the lorries which might now be in gridlock.

Customs restrictions could lead to lorry queues at the Channel ports. Photograph: Johnny Green/PA

It seemed to me that the whole debate was full of people trying to iron out petty nuisances which might be caused by removing us from the best trade deal we could ever have hoped for rather than facing the massive obvious issue at hand – the trade deal itself.

The suggestion that Brexit is solely about borders and immigration and somehow Dover was suffering the ravages of this issue more so than Streatham is utterly laughable. Even if immigration is the be-all and end-all of Brexit, which I know for some people it is, the idea that the people in Streatham don’t understand immigration is preposterous.

Pop to the big Tesco in Streatham and then to the one in Dover and tell me which area has been the front line of what happens at our borders.

My constituents voted leave, I respect that, so I voted to trigger article 50, but I’ll be damned if I am going to let Tories decide what a good Brexit looks like for my constituents.

Each and every one of us is at the front line of Brexit. It will affect every life in the country and you can bet your bottom dollar that the catastrophe for our economy of a possible “no deal” will hurt places such as where I live and Streatham much harder than any Tory seat. The poorest always pay the price.

Jess Phillips is MP for Birmingham, Yardley