ANYONE familiar with the European Union could have predicted that the negotiations to leave it would be long and painful. But few could have expected Theresa May’s government to prove so incompetent at the job. The boost she got after reaching agreement in Brussels in December on the Brexit divorce terms under Article 50 has faded fast. All around the EU she is criticised for failing to spell out what she wants the future trade relationship to be. And in London many of her own MPs are plotting to dump her because they think she is not up to the job.

It is telling that the latest Brexit row should be about the transition period after March 2019. This ought to have been one of the few uncontroversial issues. In her Florence speech last September, Mrs May was clear that what she calls an “implementation” period would prolong the status quo, only with Britain losing its voting rights. As she argued, such an arrangement was needed to give business certainty and to avoid requiring it to adjust twice. She proposed that the period should be time-limited, lasting “around two years”.

On January 29th EU foreign ministers approved their negotiating guidelines for such a transition. They leave Britain few choices. During transition, it must stay in the single market and the customs union. It will be subject to the full force of EU legislation, including new laws, without any say in them. All four freedoms, including of movement of people, will continue, though Mrs May wants to limit new arrivals’ right to stay. Britain will remain under the European Court of Justice. As for the time limit, the guidelines propose a shorter period than Mrs May did, with transition ending on December 31st 2020.

There are pitfalls in transition. One is what happens to the EU’s hundreds of agreements with third countries, including its trade deals. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, wants to remain in these, and he expects the EU to agree. But some third countries may seek concessions in return. A bigger problem is that the transition period is too short to negotiate and ratify a deep trade deal with the EU. The guidelines may leave open the possibility of an extension, but some lawyers say this may not be possible under Article 50, which is about withdrawal, not staying in.

Yet the biggest political issue on transition is the assertion by Brexiteers that Britain will become a “vassal state”. Mr Davis’s suggestion that he should be allowed to object to new EU laws will get short shrift, although British observers may be able to attend some working groups. Britain will be in a more abject position than full EU members and than countries in the European Economic Area, which mostly follow EU rules. One diplomat in Brussels likens transition to being a colony, something Britain should know all about.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the new head of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs (see Bagehot), dislikes vassal statehood so much that he thinks it would be more honest to extend Article 50’s two-year deadline, though that would need unanimous agreement from the EU’s members. It would also resolve legal worries and concerns about third-country deals. But politics gets in the way. Mrs May might be fuzzy about her ultimate goals for Brexit, but she is clear that she must be able to say that Britain has left the EU on March 29th 2019. That is consistent with entering a transition period, but not with prolonging membership by extending Article 50.

Why are hardline Brexiteers only now making a fuss about the transition? After all, as Jonathan Lis of British Influence, a think-tank, points out, its terms have been “patently obvious since Florence”. The answer is that hardliners are becoming ever more fretful about the direction the Brexit negotiations are taking. Many fear that Mrs May is heading towards a softer Brexit than the one she set out in her Lancaster House speech just over a year ago. Mr Rees-Mogg has accused the government of being cowed by the EU.

Brexiteers worry about the consequence of Britain’s promise in December that there will be no border checks in Northern Ireland. One Eurocrat calls this “unimplementable” if Mrs May sticks to her red lines of leaving the single market and the customs union. Brexiteers also know the EU is unimpressed by talk of selective regulatory divergence, which it sees as cherry-picking, and wants to enforce a level playing-field for competitiveness. They know big businesses want to stick with EU regulations and stay in a customs union. Though they dismissed this week’s leak to BuzzFeed, a news website, of government forecasts showing that any model of Brexit would cut economic growth as just more scaremongering, some must worry that the forecasters will be right this time. Most alarming is the analysis that trade deals with third countries would do little to offset lost trade with the EU.

The response of Brexiteers has been to coin an acronym for something they are determined to prevent: BRINO, or Brexit in name only. Many were incensed when the chancellor, Philip Hammond, told business leaders in Davos that, although Britain might diverge from the EU, the differences would be “very modest”. Mrs May’s office promptly said that leaving the single market and customs union could not be described as very modest steps. But Brexiteers now have Mr Hammond, and maybe Mrs May and her adviser Olly Robbins as well, in their sights.

The mood in Parliament is febrile. This week the House of Lords began its debate on the EU withdrawal bill. Even many Tory peers criticised the excessive powers it confers on the government. Several also called on Mrs May to be clearer about her end-goals. Many MPs expect the Tories to do badly in local elections in May, especially in anti-Brexit London. The prime minister could yet survive all the plots against her, not least because she has no obvious successor. But there is a risk that Parliament may vote down any Brexit deal she reaches this autumn. The biggest fear for Brexiteers may not be of a soft exit—but whether Mrs May can deliver any Brexit at all.