With the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty almost certainly producing a 'Yes', there's now some sort of consensus building in the commentariat about the impossible position David Cameron now finds himself in. If, as is likely, the treaty is ratified before Cameron gets to Downing Street, then his hands will be tied. He can't hold a British referendum on the treaty after the fact, because it would undoubtedly be seen by other member states as a Eurosceptic wrecking move and would leave the UK isolated and without influence. No matter what anti-EU bravado pumps through Tory veins, weakening our position in Europe will not be seen as a victory. More than that, the controversy accompanying a rear-guard referendum would inevitably distract from the domestic and economic policy areas a Cameron government will want to focus on.

Or so the thinking goes. But here's the thing: the EU, for all its good points (and there are many), is profoundly, abhorrently undemocratic. The widely acknowledged democratic deficit in the EU has now, thanks to the way member states have denied their people their say on Lisbon, become something approaching a democratic crisis. MEPs are unknown (when did you last read about yours?), unreachable (unless of course you're a lobbyist who can afford to travel to Brussels or Strasbourg on a whim), and unaccountable (the MEPs expenses scandal will dwarf the Westminster one). Now, this distant parliament has strayed even further from its supposed electorate. A European president will now stride across the world stage in the name of millions of citizens who never had the chance to vote for him or her. It may make sense from an organisational viewpoint, but from a democratic one it stinks.

And here is where David Cameron can fight his rearguard action. Lisbon can't be put back in the box, but the European democratic deficit is still very much in play as an issue. The reforms of the Lisbon Treaty may have been necessary to streamline the EU, tackle inefficiencies and iron out some of the other inevitable wrinkles that gather in such a massive system, but the most important reform was left out: to make the EU more democratically accountable to its citizens. A Tory government - or a Liberal Democrat one for that matter, if they would only stop being such European lickspittles - could make the argument not that Lisbon went too far, but that it has not gone far enough. Cameron should call for democratic reforms of the EU as a matter of urgency, with the threat of a British referendum on Europe being called should the EU continue to ignore the democratic rights of their citizens.

This should allow Cameron to placate the Eurosceptics in his party, keep the UK at the heart of Europe, and yet take a firm stand against the European federalists. It's very hard to argue for a democratic deficit; the problem for Cameron, of course, is that if he calls for greater democracy, he will have to mean it.