I don't know how you call the internal mess of UK politics "getting a spine". If they've accomplished anything it's been purely accidental. From the outside looking in, the problem all along has been the U.K. insisting that they get anything from the E.U. when they are in no position to negotiate anything and the E.U. is essentially of the mind of "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out". At this point the UK has made such a mess of things that they're going to screw things up for Europe in much the way your idiot neighbor causes problems for you when they burn their house down. To say that the EU needs the UK more than the other way around because they don't want to be next to a burning house is simply absurd.
EU's attitude of "don't let the door..." is just their negotiation tactics. Deep down they know they have just as much to lose as UK when this Brexit is f***ed up but to get the better deal, this is what you do. You play hard ball hoping the other person would cave in. Uh no, that's NOT going to happen when you are dealing with UK. LOL If they are so afraid of this "burning house" problem, then maybe they should finally have the courage to deal in good faith with UK on this Brexit? You never win when you try to screw somebody, ever. The earlier EU realizes this the better.
Worst comes to worst, if EU decides to shut UK completely out of its "single market" and UK does the same to EU, EU would stand to lose more. And on top of that, UK was contributing more money to EU the entire time that it was part of EU. It's importing more from EU AND paying money to EU to keep it alive and now EU wants to play hard ball with UK?? Seriously??? LOL