ATTEMPTS to defeat a government in the House of Commons rarely succeed, even when (as now) it lacks a clear majority. MPs’ natural wish to support their prime minister, their own ambitions for preferment and the whips’ cruel ways all make for a reluctance to rock the boat. So it proved again this week, when Theresa May saw off threats to amend the European Union withdrawal bill to give MPs, not the government, the decisive say over what should happen if a no-deal Brexit looms next year. She yielded on just enough points to lure most would-be rebels into the government lobby.

This produced the bizarre spectacle of Dominic Grieve, a former Tory attorney-general who had drafted the text under scrutiny, voting against his own amendment on June 20th. Shortly afterwards the Lords too acquiesced, and the EU withdrawal bill will now duly become law.

Mr Grieve claimed to have won last-minute concessions. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, promised that parliamentary time would be made available for debate. He also said the Speaker would decide if a motion in such a debate could be amended by MPs. The government had earlier tried to insist that a motion on a no-deal Brexit must be unamendable, depriving MPs of influence over what to do.

It is also true that, if Parliament rejects a Brexit deal this winter or the government fails to secure any deal at all, there will be a huge political crisis. Mrs May might have to resign, and there would be pressure for an election. Yet the rebels’ failure to go to the wire leaves them weaker. They complained loudly that Mrs May had broken a promise to accommodate their wishes, and vowed not to be intimidated. They still threaten next month to require the government to join a customs union with the EU. But the suspicion must be that, unlike the implacable Brexiteers, they are willing to wound but not to strike.

This is all the clearer since the arguments Mr Davis used against the rebels were so thin. His complaint that they were improperly trying to take over the negotiations was unpersuasive. They merely wanted the Commons to have a meaningful vote on a Brexit deal, not to be told that the only alternative was leaving with no deal, which they see as disastrous. Nor would a defeat for Mrs May automatically weaken her hand in Brussels. The truth is usually the reverse: national leaders often win the day by explaining that they cannot accept EU proposals they dislike because of recalcitrant MPs at home.

The charge that Tory rebels are really seeking to overturn the referendum result is more telling. A campaign against Brexit is indeed under way. To mark this weekend’s second anniversary of the vote, a march will call for a fresh referendum on any Brexit deal. Public opinion is slowly shifting towards the view that Brexit is not just being mismanaged but is also a mistake. Yet the main concern of the rebels is to block a no-deal Brexit that does not have parliamentary backing. Mrs May’s government also has no appetite for it. Few preparations have been made for leaving with no deal, and the cost of doing so is increasingly clear. Indeed, as she makes ever more concessions to the EU, Mrs May’s old mantra is being reversed. A bad deal, it now seems, is better than no deal.

That does not make no deal an impossibility. The clock is ticking inexorably towards Brexit day on March 29th 2019. Next week’s EU summit was supposed to take a decisive step towards a settlement. Yet the draft conclusions of the summit express concern over slow progress in the talks and over the failure to reach final agreement on a way to avert a hard border in Ireland. They also call for greater preparation for all possible outcomes, implicitly including a no-deal Brexit.

EU leaders have no desire for a big row with Mrs May now, not least because they have much else to discuss besides Brexit. But they worry that her cabinet is still divided and her government has not yet faced up to the trade-offs needed for a deal. The fact that her promised Brexit white paper is not appearing until after the summit is another annoyance. The talk in Brussels now is of putting off the endgame until November or even December. That will leave precious little time for last-minute bargaining—and even less for securing approval, which is needed from the European Parliament in Strasbourg as well as from Parliament in Westminster.