With an imminent general election, both the main political parties are riven by rows over Brexit and how tough a line to take. Yet the lesson of the last election in 2017 was that the public gets to choose which issues really matter, not the politicians – and politicians forget at their peril that elections are about issues that are as broad as life itself. And this forthcoming vote could well be much more consequential than the last one: not just wider than Brexit, but bigger than it too.

Brexit itself is merely the prism through which a much larger contest has been refracted. Over the past few years, the Brexit debate has shifted away from the question of whether the UK would secure a “good deal” or a “bad deal” from the European Union – as if we were haggling over the price of a secondhand car – towards a more isolationist impulse. Now the Brexiters argue we should walk away with a “clean break”.

There is a real possibility that the 2020s will define our political and economic settlement for an entire generation

The truth is that Brexit was never a unilateralist project but an Atlanticist one. For the Brexiters now in the cabinet, the project was never about splendid isolation but rather diverging from the European social and economic model, and embracing the American way of life. That means a sink-or-swim society, with much lower levels of social protection. Its moral principles are spartan: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

So this year’s election must be located in the deeper choices the country faces. Twice in the last century, one economic and political settlement has broken down to be replaced by another. Just as the crises of the 1930s precipitated the formation of the postwar consensus in the 40s, and the multiple crises of the 70s heralded the neoliberal settlement of the 80s, the 2020s could hold similar significance.

It is possible to detect a pattern: a moment of crisis, a decade of collapse, and a period of rebuilding. More than 10 years on from the global financial crisis, there is a real possibility that the 2020s will define our political and economic settlement for an entire generation.

The consequence of the 1945 election was that markets were tamed to serve people for 30 years. That achievement was reversed when, in 1979, a new era of market fundamentalism was unleashed. Is it possible to build a post-crash consensus in the 2020s that will carry us into the decades ahead? This could be the last general election of the neoliberal era. The alternative is that it perpetuates what Gramsci called the “interregnum” – the period when the old is dying but the new cannot be born.

Either corporate power and excess will be tamed – or inequality and injustice will deepen, with the spread of new technologies that increase the wealth and power of the new global elite. Either the finance sector will be pacified – or everyone else will live at the mercy of its investment and lending decisions, awaiting the next financial crisis. Either those with the broadest shoulders will contribute more for better public services, or those services will continue to be degraded, and public sector workers will see their living standards continue to fall.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A protest last year against underfunding and privatisation of the NHS. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Images

We have real choices to make about the society in which we live. Not only whether it cares for the poor and vulnerable who have been mistreated by austerity, but whether we expand the bounds of what we do together and for one another. Will we end, mend or renew our social contract?

The debate on so-called “universal basic services” – reimagining the norms for what the state provides – is the entry point. Will social care be provided free at the point of need or will the burden fall on individuals and families? Will public transport be made cheap and plentiful right across the country, just as it is in London? Will we make big datasets available to all researchers and entrepreneurs, or keep them walled away for the benefit of giant companies? Should internet access be universal and free? We have an opportunity to redefine which parts of life are made better by working together and what should still be left up to individuals.

There is generational urgency to this election too. The past decade has been especially tough on young people: millennials are the first generation of the modern era to be poorer than their parents, the legacy of growing up under austerity and neoliberalism. They are becoming more politically engaged and hungry for more profound change than is commonly imagined. But their demands are individual rather than collective, conservative rather than radical. They want those things their parents enjoyed: the opportunity for an education unsaddled with debt; a secure job with decent pay; the chance to own a home of their own; and a planet left to live on.

For now, the political choices made by the younger generation show they have hope that democratic and collective action can meet their demands. But what if nothing changes? It is not hard to imagine ageing millennials turning sharply towards the populist right if the broken status quo is sustained.

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Looming larger than all else is how we choose to respond to climate breakdown. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has set a challenge to the world to radically change course by 2030 before tipping points are passed. These are not just about climate, but about the preservation of nature from the oceans to the mountains. No political party should be permitted to enter the coming election without a credible proposal for what it will do.

The truth is that we can only seize the opportunities of the 2020s through collective action. And democracy itself remains our last, best hope of doing so. In recent times, the institutions of our democracy have creaked under the strain of extraordinary division. It is often said that the UK has an “unwritten constitution”, but that diverts us from its true character: our constitution belongs to the ruling class, not to the people. It is a set of rules and conventions for how the elite will conduct themselves as they govern the masses. It is precisely because Brexit has detonated that elite consensus that there is an opportunity to renew democracy for the common good.

For all the doom-mongering, there is extraordinary potential for democratic flourishing. Who could fail to be inspired by the young climate strikers taking to the streets to demand their futures? Who can fail to see how technology could take political power away from the billionaire press barons and put it in the hands of the people? For all the problems with unregulated digital platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, we cannot miss the bigger opportunity to harness the explosion of energy towards building a better society.

The answer to our problems is more democracy, not less. We could start the 2020s by letting people have the final say on Brexit; by writing a new constitution that belongs to the people; and by asserting democratic control over the economy so that it serves society. The coming election could define our country for a generation. It is a choice so much bigger than Brexit.

• Tom Kibasi is director of the Institute for Public Policy Research. He writes in a personal capacity