If the EU hadn't forced the sufficient progress issue we would be in the same impasse we are now. The problem lies in UK internal paralysis, not EU27 attempts to manage it.
The EU should have been much tougher about nailing the UK down on the details of the Irish border backstop earlier. The problem hasn't been that the EU has been too tough. The problem is that the EU has given the UK too much leeway to waste time
By this point it's pretty evident that whenever the EU signals an off ramp for the UK to ease off its red lines the UK government misreads it as a fundamental concession and drifts back into rhetoric based on a misreading of Britain's geopolitical position.
As long as the UK has a government still unable to come to terms with the asymmetry of power between the EU and the UK, the EU leadership has to be as blunt as possible about what is possible and what is not. Politeness can sometimes be counter-productive
Or to put it as my Ukie grandmother would, if you give the UK government a finger they try to chop off your arm.
Admittedly my babunya didn't like Brits. Which was a bit of a problem for my dad.
