That's quite a take.

The EU-UK negotiations were mired in issues of EU maximalism; attempting to force each PM to agree a worse deal knowing not agreeing to it would cause short term pain for that PMs political situation. Its quite the thing that the UK managed to hold on as much as it did.

The UK was on the back foot in all negotiations having been forced into the Brexit outcome.

For all the nonsense printed in the UK and Continental presses, the UK had a surprisingly consistent position through the entire thing with clear threads of staff and policies still running to today.

>the UK had a surprisingly consistent position through the entire thing

Please state the official "consistent" position regarding the main problem caused by your own decision to leave: the Irish border.

The EU position was consistent from even before the referendum: Either in or out of the single market, no cherry picking.

Each PM in the UK's neverending parade gained power by telling their electorate "I have this genius plan that'll totally let us cherry pick" only to be deflated when the EU held to its clearly stated position.

The problem with Brexit was that the Brits wanted something that was never on the table, they voted for Brexit under false pretenses and then got mad when they couldn't get what they wanted.

What?

"Forced into the Brexit outcome"

Cameron stepped down after he shat the bed, every PM was a Tory.

And yeah, the position was consistent. Before it was 'we could have all the benefits of being in the EU, with none of the down sides'. We could have soft Brexit, or the less popular hard Brexit.

Teresa Mays position was "Brexit means Brexit" and non of the others had a clue either. Because they promised everything to everyone. In the event we got a harder Brexit than the hardest Brexit discussed before the vote.

So if you want to say the UK was consistent, I say fuck you to the civil servants that consistently ignored the conversation prior to the vote.