I was a single mother who struggled financially before becoming an MP – that’s why I won’t vote for May’s deal I’ve seen the rising numbers of people relying on food banks in Wales and I know those people’s lives won’t be improved by Brexit

One of the reasons I got into politics was because I’m a single mother. What struck me when I came to Parliament in 2017 was that my situation wasn’t unique among the new intake of MPs.

So I teamed up with Rupa Huq and Rosie Duffield and set up APPG for Single Parents. It campaigns to improve the lives and opportunities for women and men like me.

Overwhelming situation

Before entering politics, I was a full-time working mother with a supportive family, but a number of life events had left me at my lowest ebb.

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It started with my separation and having to deal with the financial burden of a mortgage and being the logistics manager for my ex-husband, child and family.

I never dealt with finances well, and this period in my life was chaotic. It got worse when, in 2010, my pension contribution increased and child tax credits were cut, making monthly budgeting more challenging. As a result, I spent a lot of time putting my head in the sand and was eventually prescribed anti-depressants. Then I lost my father. I was under increasing pressure financially and that is when it all totally blew up.

No one is going to be better off under the deal we have been presented with.

When I became an activist in the Labour Party I saw that everyone was fighting a battle. My own battle had made me angry – and it made me act. The battles I saw other people having to fight made me even angrier. The prospect of leaving the European Union makes me angrier still, because no-one is going to be better off under the deal we have been presented with.

Making people worse off

There has been an increase in the use of food banks since the Universal Credit roll out, according to the Trussell Trust, and this has been seen in Swansea. When I visited a foodbank to take a load of filled pencil cases to help with ‘Back to School’, I was struck by how busy it was. A manager told me they had seen a big increase in the number of users.

As I stood outside the foodbank talking to a councillor, one mother with her children approached me to thank me for everything I was doing for her. I’ve been like exactly like her before, finding it hard to make ends meet. This was a term-time working mother, who had to use the food bank in the holidays, and it broke my heart that she felt I was her saviour.

In work poverty is something I know is hard to deal with. My son was always kitted out with hand me downs from colleagues – there was a group of us that took the bags and went through what fitted our kids and those clothes were recycled again and again.

Brexit is careless

So how can I tell my constituents that I am going to support a Brexit deal that is going to make them worse off? The Government is spinning the PM’s deal and scaremongering people into accepting a deal that will make them poorer, making people grateful for a deal because no deal is unthinkable and disastrous.

What about no Brexit? What about a People’s Vote with Remain as an option? This Government isn’t thinking about people using food banks and struggling to manage, and I don’t believe they care. And for that reason, I am incandescent with anger.

Tonia Antoniazzi is the Welsh Labour MP for Gower