BREXIT is going badly. No one can say that the sight of the British Prime Minister scuttling back from Salzburg in humiliation was particularly edifying.

However, Theresa May is admirable in the way that, even when the sky is falling in around her, she stubbornly gets on with her job, bouncing back up yesterday and demanding respect from the EU.

And so she said yesterday that she would, stubbornly, press on with negotiations because it is best for Britain to leave with a deal.

Flip that statement around, and she’s saying it would be bad for Britain to leave with no deal. And yet no deal is increasingly likely. She could be faced with implementing a no-deal Brexit which she believes would harm Britain – would she do that, or would she call an election to see if the British people really wanted her to do that?

The surprise in Salzburg was that the EU leaders did not give Mrs May a few crumbs of cake to take to her party conference. She now looks desperately vulnerable, with Boris Johnson likely to rampage around the conference soaking up the adulation of the Brexiteers while the Philip Hammond wing of the party tries to pull her in the other direction.

But her weakness is still her greatest strength, perhaps her only strength. Without her, the Tories would plunge into civil war which could end their party, and without her, the EU could find itself face to face with Mr Johnson, which could with both Europe and Britain getting burned.

The EU can’t allow Britain to leave its club and keep the benefits of membership, but it does need to offer Mrs May enough crumbs to keep her on her perch.