In addition: after the referendum, the EU offered all kinds of options to make it a soft Brexit, but those same politicians drew unnecessarily strong red lines

In addition: after the referendum, the EU offered all kinds of options to make it a soft Brexit, but those same politicians drew unnecessarily strong red lines (and are still doing so regarding Northern Ireland) in order to appease a tiny extremist minority in their party. There's only so much the EU can do. Decisions have consequences, and I can't blame the EU for being a bit too strict now and then in response to that kind of game-playing and plain incompetence.