[shapefrog]

I had missed the repeal, so these are academic now, however, were relevant back in the day, and were interesting in coalition times.

Voting no confidence path would allow the government to attempt to form another government (with a more unifying leader perhaps?) where there would be another round of votes / haggling till the 14 day limit to carry the confidence of the house. Getting the rebels to vote against the government multiple times over 2 weeks (they would be expelled from the party for the forthcoming election anyway) is extremely hard.

Getting 2/3s to vote against, while requiring more rebels, is politically probably easier, if a smallish minority have infected the party and are acting against the party core, and the opposition are dire. You can probably carry your safe seat and oust the toxic HQ leadership at the same time.

Both paths are effectively impossible. The idea back in the day was that you would just vote to repeal or amend the act, as it was easier than actually fullfilling the criteria of the act.