All the wrangling over the backstop was grimly hilarious in a way - May's position was that it would be there until it was no longer needed due to technological solutions. All the DUP, ERG nutters etc insisted it already wasn't needed and so refused to vote for it... even though their own argument meant that it would never have been implemented if they had.
(And then they all rallied around the 'Malthouse Compromise' like it was some supreme piece of diplomacy and statesmanship, when it was just a fixed time limit that undermined the purpose of the agreement).
It's hardly the only indicator that the movers behind Brexit made bad-faith arguments to justify their lunacy, but it was a pretty obvious one. I don't recall seeing any of them getting grilled over it though.
Do the Torys actually want to solve the NI border problem?
Oh, I think they'd love to have it solved, but there aren't any paths open for them to do it themselves. The plan is STILL to bluster and prevaricate in the vain hope that the EU will give in eventually and allow the Unicorn Brexit of full on independence with bespoke membership benefits on trade.
I expect the current Protocol impasse to rumble on for years, with frequent threats from Truss and the like to appease the domestic market but no actual movement to implement anything. The Tories possibly think an unresolved Brexit is a trump card to be played if they're not in power after the next election - give Starmer the headache of putting proper import controls in place and further wrecking trade/the economy, or even seeking some sort of regulatory alignment to deal with the border issue. There isn't a way out of the morass that doesn't generate easy ammunition to use against a government making the decisions.