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.