An ugly EU referendum campaign has led to an even uglier aftermath. Historians will see the largest popular revolt against political, business and financial elites as the nearest Britain has come in centuries to a revolution. Unless we understand what lies behind it, protectionist forces will remain in the ascendant and the very existence of the UK in jeopardy.

The leaders of the Remain campaign failed to persuade the British people that, in an interdependent world, countries have to get the balance right between the autonomy they desire and the international co-operation they need. The hollowness of the slogan used by the Leave side and anti-globalisation protesters everywhere — “Take back control” — remained unexposed.

It is a simple truth that if the global economy appears leaderless, anti-globalisation movements will rise. Although millions know the costs of globalisation, few ever hear of the gains.

While today’s patently global problems — low growth, trade protectionism, financial instability and deep-seated inequality, as well as mass migration — cry out for co-ordinated global solutions, politicians act as if such problems are best addressed by nation states acting alone and shy away from advocating the international co-operation essential for inclusive growth. As a result, the one global economic organisation where political leadership could make the most difference — the G20 group of leading industrial nations — is widely viewed as ineffective, while the EU has come to be viewed as part of the problem rather than the solution.

It is no accident that while Britain’s most cosmopolitan cities voted for the UK to remain in the EU, the semi-skilled workers of towns like Burnley, Hartlepool, Wolverhampton and Hull were Leave’s newest recruits. Paradoxically, those worst affected by the ills of globalisation voted against what was a partial cure.

This is not just a British problem. In country after country, the gap between the promise of globalisation and people’s day-to-day experiences of insecurity, joblessness and stalled living standards is so stark that we are bound to see more “take back control” protests. There is a view that, with the old industrial revolution battle between working classes and elites finally over, the new political dividing line is between those who champion open societies and those who favour closed ones. This ignores profound questions about who gains and who loses from global change.

The real division is between those who would support a well-managed globalisation and those who oppose co-ordinated action, either because they favour a global free-for-all or are simply anti-globalisation populists and protectionists. This dichotomy lies at the heart of the current turmoil in the Labour party: is it to be a party of anti-globalisation protest or a pro-globalisation movement that uses power to transform insecurity into opportunity?

In post-industrial societies around the world, mainstream parties are fighting for their very survival as old loyalties fracture and concerns about identity rise to the surface. So we need a programme that shows how an open global economy can maximise the opportunities and minimise the insecurities of the unskilled, the poorly educated and those currently losing out. In doing so we can answer the question left hanging in the referendum and show how states can commit to wide-ranging co-operation on trade, security, energy and the environment without sacrificing proud national identities.

We have to act quickly. Protectionist forces have ensured that for the first time in 40 years there is no world trade agreement, while the substitutes for such an agreement — the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnership — are now being killed off by protests in America and Europe. Self-absorbed and inward-looking European countries appear incapable of coping with the problems on their doorstep: Russian aggression, the civil war in Syria, Isis, migration from Africa and the Middle East, and of course, economic stagnation.

At a minimum, September’s G20 summit should show that global co-operation can make a difference. To reinvigorate trade and stimulate a still-sluggish world economy, it should agree a global growth pact founded on a co-ordinated approach to monetary and fiscal policy and structural reform.

At home, a programme to make globalisation work will achieve little if it is fixated on boardroom pay and representation: it should be about new ways to encourage upward mobility, winning the race between education and technology and re-establishing the link between high productivity, high growth and rising living standards while tackling inequalities at source.

Although David Davis, the new Brexit minister, wants a Canadian-style trade deal with the EU, full access to the single market via the European Economic Area is in Britain’s national interest and should be our first objective. We should negotiate to use the EEA’s safeguard clause and the kind of protocol Liechtenstein has to ease worries about migration. It is time for governments everywhere to give globalisation the leadership it lacks — and the human face it needs.

The writer was UK prime minister between 2007 and 2010