The UK's conduct has been appalling. I am deeply ashamed about how my government has conducted itself, and represented the people of the UK. I think the EU's response has been restrained if anything.

I'm not entirely surprised you'd feel that way - the British seem to be uniquely self-flagellating on topics of nation and state. But I'm not sure how you can support the European Union actively punishing the _people and businesses_ of the United Kingdom in response to the 'conduct' of the _government_ of the United Kingdom, when you think said government hasn't provided proper representation for their people. Whether the United Kingdom deserves it or not has little bearing on this technically unusual and rather petty decision.

I'm also thoroughly opposed to the idea that the European Union is always strict with its rules. It can be. And it is right to be, particularly in the case human rights. But it's impossible to pretend that there hasn't been gross flouting of rules over the last decade. When the stability of the Euro has been at stake, rules always take second-place.

> And it is right to be, particularly in the case human rights.

The European Convention on Human Rights is not an EU institution. The EU has had problems causing conflict with it, such as with the European Arrest Warrant.

> When the stability of the Euro has been at stake, rules always take second-place.

And when the Euro isn't at stake either, after all, they integrated Greece when it failed the checks and balances, pushing it through anyway.

Ignoring for the moment the insanity of Brexit in the first place, I'm particularly unimpressed that it also includes leaving ECHR. That was never mentioned until much later as the "hard Brexit" madness got going.

The Tories must have forgot it was their beloved Churchill who was a huge advocate for its creation and promoted it from the end of the war and through the 48 Congress of Europe. Atlee's Labour was against it, whilst the Conservatives signed it for the UK in 51 or 52.

I have to agree with your sentiment here. A vote to leave the EU didn't mean leave the ECHR.

To add to your point further, the Good Friday agreement (which brought some peace in Northern Ireland) actually is supposed to bind the UK to the ECHR.

Of course you can support punishing the people and business of the United Kingdom. The government is not a separate entity, it represent the people and businesses of the UK and acts on their behalf. Whether the government properly represents its people is not for the EU to concern itself with, that is a matter between the people and the government.

Threatening to delete domains for political reasons is “restrained”? I hate brexit probably as much as everyone here, but the institution of the EU has not come out of this any better than the Tory government.

The EU can claim the moral high ground here; they have remained politically professional and not petty, unlike the UK who did the referendum in the first place as a petty political play, and who is now massively voting against a deal, each for their own reasons; the deal is bad, we don't want to leave the EU so let's postpone or force the UK to stay, or we want to force re-elections.

I feel like they've been quite consistent in their rules-are-rules stance. And the UK has taken the "rules are meant to be broken" stance, which was a risky gamble and showed poor judgment.

This news was a surprise to me, but I wouldn't be further surprised if this procedure is explained in rules that the UK had a hand in drafting.

UK was offered a deal. They've rejected a deal which was pretty extensive and handled loads of things. UK chose to leave, UK got a way better deal than they should, UK rejected it, cake is going away, still is on the EU? Really?

They are not threatening - it's certainly within their rights and within the rule of the law.

I don't see why the EU should show goodwill when every day the British politician tell them to go f%^& themselves. At some point they expect goodwill before extending it.

I assume the internet traditionally lets domains be grandfathered in because it doesn't just 'break' the domain it also 'breaks' all the links to the domains that are no longer eligible. Internet people don't like breaking the hypertext :)

Agreed which is why it's an interesting choice.

> Pretty petty if you ask me. ICANN generally lets things be grandfathered in.

EU membership is not a phone subscription.

Never said it was. I just was saying it's quite different from ICANN policy and plus there are old defunct country code domains which still have domain records even though you can't make new domains records.

It just breaks things like E-Mail, and cause problems such as making phishing more believable since the cTLD is still active. Plus numerous other things. It would have made more sense to block new registration, but it's a cTLD so not entirely governed by ICANN.

Plus I mean petty as in such a small thing to worry about. People who are not in the EU already can use an intermediary. So what's the point of breaking a bunch stuff?