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The Commons is a place of binary choices.

Government or opposition, ayes or noes, Tory or Labour - it's not a place where you can have a bit of everything.

But today, for once, MPs could.

Instead of having to choose between one lobby or the other they could vote for everything they liked; they were able to choose their ideal Brexit outcome and, if they so wished, everything else they could live with from eight different options ranging from no deal to full-blown revocation of Article 50.

And the answer was…they couldn't live with anything.

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Nothing got a majority, not one of the options.

This House of Commons once again showed it cannot agree on Brexit and it will not agree on Brexit.

The numbers are just too finely balanced, each side unable to displace the other, held in perfect political suspension.

Some parliaments have been called the long parliament or the short; this one (if we are kind) will surely be the undecided.

But two propositions - the idea of a permanent customs union and a confirmatory referendum on any deal - got more votes than the PM's deal on either outing.

Full-blown revocation of Article 50, nowhere just a few weeks ago, won support from nearly a third of the Commons.

Backstop? Customs union? Brexit jargon explained

White paper, common rulebook, Canada plus ... what do all the Brexit terms actually mean?

So this does suggest, therefore, there are potentially ways out of this. Theoretically the prime minister could add a customs union to her deal.

Given the numbers it might well pass.

But in the process she would tear the Tories apart, something she is manifestly unwilling to do.

More tantalising is the prospect of a confirmatory referendum.

Given most of the Conservative Party is now swinging behind the prime minister's deal, it is possible that if she whipped Tory MPs towards that her deal would pass.

It would also provide a stable basis for the future as all MPs, if the public endorsed it, would have to accept it and a future Tory leader could not seek to dismantle it.

But the prime minister has seemed completely unwilling to entertain the notion.

Therefore, given the numbers do not exist in this parliament for her deal, or any deal, the only alternative must be to get a new parliament.

There's no guarantee this deal can ever be brought back, but if it is, with European Research Group conversions, it's easy to see how it could now not be short by 230, or 149, but by 15, or 20 or 30.

And with nearly all of the Tory Party finally singing from the same hymn sheet, an election could be called on the back of the deal manifesto.

A general election must be closer than it's ever been, in order to get a parliament which, one way or the other, is not quite so undecided.