Next week, voters across Europe face the most highly charged election to the European parliament in 40 years. In most of the previous five-yearly EU polls, political parties have struggled to engage the more than 400 million citizens who are entitled to vote. Past contests have regularly been fought on domestic rather than Europe-wide issues. Voters have often used their ballots as an opportunity to kick their own governments. Turnout has declined every time – down to 43% in 2014.

That trend may not – and certainly should not – continue next week. The 2019 elections, the first since the rise of populism, have been more confrontational. That’s because there is more at stake for Europe today than before in the face of resurgent nationalism, and in a world marked by Chinese power, Russian aggression, American isolationism and Islamist terrorism.

Although each country has faced its own form of nativist surge, these have also triggered a blowback. The 2019 contests have seen an overdue and more energised defence of the case for European cooperation against common threats. These threats range from monopolistic tech giants to the global climate emergency, against which individual states are far less powerful than the EU can be. Angela Merkel was right when she said this week that the new uncertainties “are forcing us, time and again, to find common positions”.

This is the larger and enduring reality against which Britain’s unplanned participation in these elections should be seen. Brexit or no Brexit, Britain will remain a European nation, subject to the same regional pressures as before. Member of the EU or not, Britain will have to respond to issues like climate crisis and security threats in cooperation with these neighbours and allies. And, unless the “ourselves alone” Brexit extremists take over in Britain – which they must not be permitted to do – our businesses, our industries, our scientists, our research and development teams and our individual citizens will remain intimately networked with theirs.

For Britain, these elections are squarely about our place in Europe. This is not a general election. It is a vote about whether Britain can play the part it should in the 21st-century world. The UK is only taking part next week because the Conservative government’s Brexit project has fallen apart – talks with Labour which might have rescued it were called off on Friday – and the leavers’ promises have been exposed as fantasies. Yet this is an opportunity to reclaim a place that we should never have abandoned. It is an opportunity – but only one step along the way – to help Britain take a better direction in Europe.

It is not an opportunity that has been seized as effectively as it could have been. The failure of the pro-European parties to form a popular front and adopt a single list and programme in these elections is regrettable. In the absence of that, the best alternative is to vote only for pro-European candidates who can be counted on to oppose the hard-Brexit terms on offer and to keep the issue open for a possible second referendum, and who stand a chance of winning under the proportional system in operation.

This means different things in the UK’s 12 electoral regions. In many there are multiple pro-European options. They include the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, Change UK, the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland’s Alliance. But pro-Europeans must be very careful to make their votes count. Labour’s pro-European position is less simple. It is a party largely of remainers whose stance, in part the result of anxieties about its leave voters, is opaque. Many pro-Europeans understandably wish to vote Labour, but they should weigh candidates’ records before taking what is something of a calculated risk.

More important, however, is to keep the big picture in mind. These elections are a chance to reshape British politics. They should be a rejection of Brexit, the parties that campaigned for it, and the parties that now want to impose the harshest version. In the rightwing narrative, these elections are all about the Brexit party and the battle for the Tory leadership. In a more balanced perspective, though, they are about something much bigger. They are, quite simply, about the chance to reassert Britain’s place in Europe.