THE timing could not have been worse. After weeks of indecision Angela Eagle, a veteran Labour MP, at last announced a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn as party leader on July 11th. But just as she was making her pitch to a room full of journalists, the reporters began to leave. Elsewhere, the Conservatives’ own leadership battle had come to an abrupt end, and Theresa May was about to be crowned the winner. Ms Eagle’s gauntlet was buried by headlines about the new prime minister.

Things did not get better. A bid to keep Mr Corbyn out of the leadership contest, on the basis that he could not secure the backing of 51 Labour MPs or MEPs, failed when the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) ruled by 18 votes to 14 that Mr Corbyn must be on the ballot as the incumbent. Then Owen Smith, another Labour MP who, unlike Ms Eagle, had opposed the Iraq war, announced his own leadership bid, threatening a divide among anti-Corbyn MPs. All this lends some justice to a remark by John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, that the anti-Corbyn plotters were “fucking useless”.

Ever since Mr Corbyn became leader last September there has been tension between Labour MPs, most of whom consider him unelectably left-wing, and party members, many of whom adore him. It was bad enough when he won the leadership crushingly last September after scraping around for last-minute nominations from MPs, some of whom backed him just to make the contest more lively. It is now much worse: 172 of Labour’s 230 MPs have declared no confidence in Mr Corbyn, making his position in the parliamentary party untenable. Next week’s Trident vote is likely to expose just how far removed he is from his own MPs (see article).

The Brexit referendum crystallised their frustration. The party was formally committed to Remain, but many moderate MPs felt that Mr Corbyn was half-hearted at best, and that this caused many Labour voters, especially in northern and eastern England, to back Leave. With Mr Corbyn’s poll ratings dismal and a serious risk of the party compounding its loss of Scotland in 2015 by losing northern England, most Labour MPs desperately want a new leader.

Yet they may not get one. There is talk of a legal challenge to the NEC decision, but it is unlikely to succeed, as the rules are at best ambiguous about whether the incumbent needs signatures, like a challenger. The nasty treatment of anti-Corbyn MPs, including a brick being thrown through the window of Ms Eagle’s constituency office and efforts to intimidate moderates by members of the far-left Momentum group, could lead some party members to change their minds about Mr Corbyn. The NEC’s decision to exclude from the leadership vote new members who have joined the party only since January, and to require newly registered supporters to pay £25 ($33), not £3 as last year, may also reduce his support. Yet he remains the favourite to defeat any challengers.

What then? A large number of moderate MPs might set up a new opposition group and pick a new leader. But after such a split, they would risk losing Labour’s apparatus, assets and name. The rebels are not eager to join the Liberal Democrats; they recall the rebels who left Michael Foot’s Labour Party in 1981 to form the Social Democrats, a party that later disappeared. So they may just hope that Mr Corbyn is sufficiently wounded by winning with a smaller margin than last time that they can prepare a successful challenge next year. Either way, the only winner for now is Mrs May.