We propose a semi-classical description of the low-energy properties of quantum spin ice in the strong Ising limit. Within the framework of a semiclassical, perturbative Villain expansion, that can be truncated at arbitrary order, we give an analytic and quantitative treatment of the deconfining phase. We find that photon-photon interactions significantly renormalise the speed of light and split the two transverse photon polarisations at intermediate wavevectors. We calculate the photon velocity and the ground state energy to first and second order in perturbation theory, respectively. The former is in good agreement with recent numerical simulations.