Just over a week ago, more than 33 million people, having reflected on our 43-year membership of what started as the Common Market and became the European Union, cast their vote in a UK-wide referendum.

52% voted to leave, 48% thought we should remain. Politicians, having put the responsibility to make such a significant and far-reaching decision to the people, now have a duty to implement that decision.

Let us, just for a moment, imagine if the outcome had been reversed and 52% had voted to remain. If there had been an online petition to ignore the vote, calls for MPs to overturn the result, a demand for a second referendum, what would have been the response? Vote Leave people such as me would have been laughed at, branded bad losers and told to just go away and get on with it, that the people had spoken. But this is just what is happening. I have heard it said that old people shouldn’t have been allowed to vote. That this was a referendum about the future and that the under-40s have been disenfranchised. There is talk of deception or that this was all too complicated. In essence, the insinuation is the nice and bright voted remain, while the unsophisticated, simple folk voted leave.

Let’s put an end to this London-centric sneering and belittling, then pause and reflect on what needs to be done. The nation and much of the media seem to be having a collective nervous breakdown. Westminster in general and individual politicians in particular need to accept that this vote wasn’t about them. It was about the people of the United Kingdom deciding how they wished to be governed. They were clear. They wanted to take back control over their borders, their taxation system and their laws.

The turmoil in both political parties is the manifestation of a much deeper malaise. The referendum was arguably the first chance in the past 20 years where casting your vote made a decisive difference. Since the Labour landslide in 1997, the main parties have at the core become managerial rather than ideological. The referendum was different – 72% of the electorate took part and delivered a conclusive majority vote. There is no going back. The whole point of political parties and democratic institutions is to mediate between mob rule and bureaucratic tyranny. They have to give shape to the will of people in a fair and balanced way.

Westminster in general and individual politicians in particular need to accept that this vote wasn’t about them

The referendum wasn’t about Tories versus Labour. The dividing lines were quite different. For a small number, and I include myself in this group, it was about democratic accountability and creating new institutions that would be capable of responding to the challenges of globalisation and the flows of goods, money and people.

But for the majority, it was about those who have a good life and for whom, broadly speaking, things are all right and those who felt they had nothing left to lose. That’s why Project Fear didn’t work. From the chancellor threatening a punishment budget, to the governor of the Bank of England, to a string of businesses and experts threatening everything from Armageddon to the Third World War – it had no traction, because if you can’t get your child into the school of your choice, and you can’t get a GP appointment and there is no chance of you ever buying your first house, then threats don’t work. People had to listen to others who don’t live in their kind of neighbourhoods, calling them racists when they expressed concerns about immigration.

The status quo was not on the ballot paper. The EU has to change and the euro countries have to become a country called Europe. Those who voted remain, because the world they live in is serving them well, ignored the risk of staying shackled to a failing euro and an outdated political structure. They have to resist the temptation to blame any ill from this that befalls us on Brexit, otherwise we will ignore the real causes and will fail to address them. Those who voted leave because they had nothing left to lose were largely in Labour heartlands. They feel let down by an increasingly metropolitan Labour party.

Where do we go from here? This was a vote for change and we cannot ignore it. In doing so, we must come together. There is no place for racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant language. This is unacceptable and we need to say so loud and clear. It has no part to play in shaping our future.

Politics can be simple. People want freedom, respect and a fair deal for them and their children in return for hard work. If we don’t have a country where work and talent can take you from the bottom to the top in one generation, then we don’t have a country that is just. Inequality of opportunity and income has widened over the past 15 years to the point where it has become a chasm.

Membership of the EU has made things worse, pushing down wages, increasing pressure on public services and eroding democratic accountability while rewarding the better off with more opportunity and higher pay.

People knew what they voted for. They were not deceived and there is no second referendum. During the referendum, the cross-party Vote Leave team outlined some basic things that were essential. Democratic control of immigration, via a points-based system. Ensuring supremacy of UK courts and giving priority to public services in general and the NHS in particular.

Our place in the world includes shaping new accountable institutions that have consent and can deal with the global flows of goods, capital and people. The EU has shown itself incapable of doing this. This is about opportunity and about hope.