LONDON — One thing that we have learned about Prime Minister Theresa May over the last two years: She does not give up. Even when her task seems impossible, when she fails on the most public stage imaginable, when she is sick, and tired, and subjected to another round of jeers and sneers from the boys’ club at Westminster. Every morning she gets up, dusts herself off, and gets on with the job.

For that reason, Britain paused for a moment on Wednesday evening, when word emerged from inside a committee room: She had given up.

She did so in a very Theresa May-ish way, giving the haters what they wanted — her head on a platter — but only at the cost of a titanic concession. Standing before her fellow Conservative lawmakers in Westminster’s Committee Room 14, she offered Tory rebels herself in exchange for approving the withdrawal agreement she had negotiated for Britain’s exit from the European Union.