I thought I had seen peak revisionism around the Covid years but some of this thread tops that.

When we voted to leave the EU a number of types of deal were available.

The first thing the May government did was rule out being part of the Single Market or a Customs Union. This immediately limited the options on the table.

To resolve the issue of a land border on the island of Ireland there were then two options. A backstop that kept the UK in the customs union until a technological or other solution was available to preserve the integrity of the Single Market or a border for certain goods between GB and Northern Ireland.

May pushed the former, had people like Johnson resign and her Party forced out of office. Johnson pulled his oven ready deal out of the hat (the GB/NI border), agreed a deal with Brussels which included detaching the UK from the EU to the widest extent to supposedly allow the greatest opportunity to negotiate new trade deals with the rest of the world. This introduced friction in trade between GB and continental EU.

This was voted overwhelmingly through Parliament and Johnson won a landslide on the back of it, not least because he promised people like the DUP and hardliners in his party there would be no checks between GB and NI when this was patently not the case (ie not for the first time he lied through his teeth to gain a short term advantage.

The last couple of years has been taken up with dealing with the consequences of this shabby deal, particularly as the DUP soon realised they had been duped. Where Dominic Grieve and Yvette Cooper fit into this Tory/ERG owned shitshow, other than voting against May's deal is anyone's guess.