COMPROMISES have few friends. So it has proved with the Chequers plan for Brexit, which proposes staying in the single market for goods along with a complex “facilitated customs arrangement” chiefly designed to avert a hard border in Ireland. Brexiteers hate being tied closely to Brussels. Pro-Europeans think the plan is worse than continuing membership. And the EU sees both of its main features as unworkable and undermining the integrity of its single market.

The noisiest attacks come from hardline Tory Brexiteers. Two ministers, Boris Johnson and David Davis, quit the cabinet in July over Chequers. They want Brexit to be based on a Canada-style free-trade deal instead. Yet this week the Brexiteers failed to come up with the detailed alternative plan that they had long promised. A paper claiming that a no-deal Brexit would boost the economy attracted much ridicule. So did a purported plot by Tory MPs to oust Theresa May as prime minister. Yet Tory hardliners believe that, even if they cannot topple Mrs May, they have enough votes to scupper a Chequers deal in Parliament.

At the same time, Chequers is disappointing to the hardliners’ opponents. They see rule-taking in the single market for goods, with no privileged access for services, as a backward step. Several would prefer to be like Norway, which as a member of the European Economic Area is fully in the single market. Some Tories are arguing for the Norway option as a temporary home that would both avoid the pain of a no-deal Brexit and create the time and space needed to negotiate a more comprehensive free-trade deal. Others like the idea of another referendum, especially if Parliament cannot pass any deal.

Across the channel other EU countries are closely watching Britain’s political chaos. They expect Mrs May to have a torrid time with Mr Johnson and his friends at the Conservative Party’s conference in two weeks’ time (see article). They know that Labour is likely to oppose any deal she brings back from Brussels. That this would make it hard to win parliamentary approval will colour their approach to Mrs May. Why concede ground over a deal they dislike if it is heading for rejection at home in any event?

The timetable is now desperately tight. Brexit is due to happen on March 29th 2019. Next week Mrs May will lobby her fellow EU leaders at an informal summit in Salzburg. They will listen politely and are likely to avoid declaring Chequers dead. Yet hopes that leaders might then soften the strict guidelines they have set for the Brexit talks will be dashed. Only at the October summit will they seriously engage with Brexit, for the first time. There is then likely to be an emergency summit in mid-November that tries to agree to a deal, although many in Brussels consider December a more realistic goal.

What sort of deal might be achievable? In Brussels the emphasis is on the formal Article 50 withdrawal treaty that has to be agreed and ratified before Brexit, whereas details around future trade relations will be negotiated afterwards. Most of the withdrawal treaty, on money, EU citizens and so on, is settled, but with one big outstanding issue: a backstop to avoid a border in Northern Ireland in all circumstances, even if no deal can be reached.

The EU claims that last December Mrs May acquiesced to a backstop that keeps Northern Ireland in the customs union and single market even if the rest of the country leaves both. Mrs May says this is unacceptable since it implies a border in the Irish Sea. Yet Brussels is unwilling to apply the backstop to the whole country, insisting it must be for the province alone. It also downplays worries about a border in the Irish Sea. Already inspections of meat products take place on ferries. Adding extra customs checks on all goods would hardly amount to the EU annexing Northern Ireland—and would surely be less damaging than the alternative of border checks between north and south.

It may be possible to fudge some aspects of the backstop, but EU diplomats say it has to be legally operational. Even so Mrs May could accept it on the ground that it will never come into force as a future trade deal supersedes it. That points to ensuring that a political agreement on the future deal is reasonably specific about its terms. Yet Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy, sees this as tricky, since the other EU countries want to make clear that the future arrangement is not one that is overtly based on the Chequers model.

Hence the appeal of another idea that would, in effect, kick the can down the road. The detailed withdrawal treaty would still have to be agreed and ratified, but the political declaration on the future trade relationship would be kept largely aspirational. Mrs May could still maintain that this keeps the Chequers plan going (despite what the EU says). If the declaration avoids too many specifics and gestures towards a deep and comprehensive free-trade agreement, the thinking is, it will be harder to attack. Surely neither Brexiteers nor Remainers can easily object to a vague statement of intent?

Such an ambiguous, “blind” Brexit may run into problems with the European Parliament, which will have to ratify it. But the bigger obstacle will be Westminster. Mrs May has proved a rotten salesman for Chequers, both at home and abroad. Many MPs say they would be unhappy to be asked to approve a withdrawal treaty, including paying some £39bn ($50bn) to the EU, without firmer guarantees about the exact nature of a future trade deal. Yet officials think that Mrs May could still win the day, mainly by using different arguments for the various factions in her party.

Thus hardline Brexiteers will be told that if they vote down a deal, the resulting political chaos risks not just bringing in a Labour government but also reversing Brexit altogether. The message for soft Brexiteers will be that, if the deal fails, the most likely alternative will be to leave the EU without a deal. Remainers unhappy with Chequers will be advised that, if Mrs May is forced out by a rejection of the deal, they risk getting Mr Johnson as their new party leader. And so on.

The Brexit negotiations are entering a high-risk, high-pressure phase. The chances of an accident that leads to a messy no-deal Brexit are rising. Yet however much its opponents on all sides may insist that Chequers is dead, its shade seems very much alive.