Let's imagine that, come June 24th, Cameron's luck has held and brought him squeaking home again. The UK has voted to stay in the European Union, and the Remain campaign's margin of victory (while you certainly couldn't call it generous) is enough to settle the matter of membership until the current political generation is put out to pasture. 

Let's also suppose- this might require a greater leap of the imagination- that the government doesn't immediately descend into civil war. Instead, Brexiteers and Bremainers alike agree to make the EU work as far as possible in the British interest, seeing as they'll be members for the foreseeable future. Where might they start? 

They won't be blessed with unlimited goodwill from their neighbours. Cameron's renegotiation, his veto of the fiscal compact treaty in 2011 and his failed attempt to block Jean-Claude Juncker's candidacy for Presidency of the Commission have all expended political capital, and the referendum  seems to many a pointless gamble with the EU's future. But the UK is still far from marginalized. The northern European countries (in particular the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden) are its natural allies on most issues and broadly share Britain's desire for a competitive, economically liberal EU, and many of the smaller countries are grateful for the UK's willingness to be a truculent counterweight to Germany and France. 

All this means that few have been more successful than the British at making sure that EU policy fits their national preferences, according to data gathered by the University of Strathclyde and analysed by Simon Hix of the LSE. From the single market to the incorporation of former Warsaw Pact countries, and even in its legislation on climate change and animal welfare, the EU exists in its current form because Britain has made it the way it is. So much so, that continental Euroscepticism often portrays the EU not as a corporatist, bureaucratic behemoth, but as a front for freewheeling “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism.

So why would a basically free-market Tory government not make it even more so? This needn't take the form of compromising workers' rights. The current single market works best for manufacturers- perfect for Germany, but less well-suited for a country like the UK which relies on selling services. The expansion of the single market in services, the digital economy and energy is a widely-shared goal, and one that could provide a much-needed €300 billion boost to the continent's economy. This means, for example, ensuring that a civil engineer can work in Croatia with British qualifications, that individuals can access their streaming service subscriptions wherever they travel, and that companies need only register once to operate anywhere in the EU. Cameron's renegotiation earlier this year extracted a renewed commitment that this would be an EU priority over the next few years, and the think-tank Open Europe has argued that Britain should press ahead with deepening the single market in these areas even if it cannot convince all 27 other states to get on board.

Also in the pipeline are also free trade deals with the US and Japan, and an investment treaty with China. The UK government has taken pains to cultivate a good relationship with China, and the US deal in particular (TTIP) may require political willpower to complete in the face of growing opposition and widespread misunderstanding. All of these would be fairly clearly in the UK's interest, and all would benefit from determined UK leadership. 

There are also steps can that can be taken to give the UK more leverage over the EU institutions, whatever policy direction the British government wants to take. The proportion of British citizens working for EU institutions is feeble, and it's only getting worse- only 2.4% of applicants to the EU civil service were Brits. There are several reasons for this: the UK Civil Service will understandably be a more tempting alternative to a UK graduate than its counterpart will be to a young and well-qualified Bulgarian, and our foreign language skills remain comically poor. Uncertainty over the UK's continued membership will also have deterred some applicants. But if there were a way to bring more Britons into Brussels- whether via a recruitment drive or more secondments from the Foreign Office- it would translate into more control of the EU's machinery.

Finally, the Tory party should rejoin the EPP- the alliance of pro-European centre-right parties that makes up the single largest and most powerful grouping in the European Parliament. Realistically, this isn't going to happen- Cameron took the party out of the grouping as recently as 2009 as a sop to Eurosceptic backbenchers. But the Conservatives now sit with a group of right-wing European parties- most of which are fairly fringe, and many of which are alarmingly populist. This isn't just a point of symbolism- it means that Cameron is excluded from the informal meetings that take place between the leaders of Europe's centre-right before major EU summits, at which deals are struck and positions staked out. Merkel, Juncker and Donald Tusk- the President of the European Council- all attend. A wiser party might accept that differing attitudes to European integration are a poor reason for letting relationships wither.

For the past few years, as Europe has dealt with debt and refugee crises and a war in Ukraine, the government's reluctance to confront its Eurosceptics has meant the UK has taken a back seat. But when UK governments decide to engage with the EU, they can shape it to their advantage and to the rest of Europe's. Making the rules that bind us can only be preferable to letting others take the lead, and then lobbying for exemptions. If we vote to Remain on the 23rd, this might start to seem more obvious. 

Constantine Fraser is a postgraduate student at LSE