Can't really excuse Bojo the clown and his circus posse on this one, a massively misjudged failure.
Boris is a wild boar in a china shop when we need real negotiators. He just says "this is what I want to happen" with no assessment of the viability of that. Unfortunately his 'team' of ministers are equally hopeless.
Brexit was supposed to reduce migration, except it removed our ability to deport migrants back to France. Then Boris conducts yet another fail by insulting the French by stating we could station forces on their territory.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/france-cancels-meeting-uk-following-074205166.html