Evening Standard comment: No deal, no votes and no idea what’s next; Royal congratulations

The surprise is that there is any surprise. On Sunday, there was going to be an agreement — and then, all of a sudden, after the Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab arrived to say no, there wasn’t.

That’s because the Government’s strategy of bashing round pegs into square holes can only go on for so long before the impossibility is exposed and the events of the past 24 hours have confirmed it.

Trying to align Brexit hardliners and a fragmented Parliament with the sort of deal the EU is offering will not work.

So what happens next? Here are three things that count.

One: today, all the noise at Westminster is coming from Tory Brexiteers. Several Cabinet ministers are said to be threatening to resign if the Prime Minister presses on. They won’t vote for the deal the Government’s negotiators apparently almost reached.

They bluster about the heroic isolation of walking away instead and in that folly are being encouraged by a Government which is pretending it can be ready for a chaotic exit on March 29.

But remember: if the Prime Minister doesn’t have the numbers (and right now, she doesn’t), then nor do they. There is no majority in the House of Commons or in the country for a hard Brexit of the kind they want. And in the end, it’s the numbers that will count.

Two: the choice doesn’t have to be between the Prime Minister’s position (which Parliament won’t back) and a no-deal exit.

As the Labour MP Chris Leslie writes for the Evening Standard today, “the notion of a ‘deal or no deal’ Brexit is entirely a fabrication by the Prime Minister”.

She has found herself putting forward a plan without friends, too close to Europe for some in her party, too far away for others to come to her rescue. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other options.

One would be a clearer commitment to the customs union than the Government is currently willing to make. Or joining EFTA and the European Economic Area: the so-called Norway option. This is the moment to move to these.

Three: but even if it does move, the Government cannot rely on being rescued by the Opposition. As Mr Leslie writes, there is no reason why Labour MPs should vote for a deal they don’t like in order to save the Prime Minister’s skin.

In that, she has been caught by the logic which has stood since the Government threw away its majority in last year’s election.

Number 10 says it wants a deal which can unite the Conservative Party. But no form of deal can do that. Until the unavoidable truth of this is tested in the Commons, however, the Prime Minister may go on insisting she is working to reach a deal, without ever daring to reach one.

But a compromise without support is in the end no sort of compromise at all, and can only bring chaos.

The day when the Government has to choose between what is right for the country and what satisfies the ideological obsessions of some Conservatives is rapidly approaching.

Royal congratulations

With perfect timing, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex touched down in Australia for the start of their first official Royal tour — and brought with them happy news.

We join all those congratulating the couple today on the announcement that the Duchess is expecting her first child , which will be the seventh in line to the throne.

Since their marriage in May, the couple have brought a welcome new energy and a fresh approach to the Royal Family, typified by the Duke’s support for the Invictus Games, taking place in Sydney.

They may have had to keep the news of the Duchess’s pregnancy to themselves until after last week’s wedding at Windsor, but there’s no better place than Australia to tell the world their secret, a country whose ties to the Royal Family are close and long-standing.

Now we know, perhaps, why she has decided not to join her husband on a climb across the Sydney Harbour Bridge later this week — but first come traditional Royal duties of the sort that will win more excitement and interest than usual.

Some joyful, sunny news from Sydney is just what the nation needed on a damp London day.