Thread by @SuneAuken

@EmporersNewC I think it's worth noting that even taken as a threat, this is a huge failure.

What we are dealing with here is a so-called conditional threat: Do this OR I will do that to you - i.e. Give me all the money you owe me, OR I'll beat you up. 1/

@EmporersNewC For a conditional threat to work (yep, it's a #genre thing) the consequence of non-compliance has to be worse than what the threatened party has to do to comply. 2/

@EmporersNewC "Give me your wallet, or I'll kill your children" works; "kill your children, or I''ll take your wallet" usually doesn't. 3/

@EmporersNewC In this case, for the EU to comply with the demands of the UK government it would have to accept a fully open border between the EU and the UK with no checks anywhere, different regulatory regimes on each sides of the border, and no deciding influence UK rules. 4/

@EmporersNewC This would be the beginning of the end of the customs union and the single market as the market would no longer be protected by common rules, but would have a backdoor or gigantic proportions that would undoubtedly be used to undercut it. 5/

@EmporersNewC And on, the EU will not take the UK on trust, if they cannot even be trusted with a signed and binding agreement.6/

@EmporersNewC Now whatever the consequences of the threat, if carried through, they do not amount to the full scale breakdown of everything the EU has worked for and everything the EU is. 7/

@EmporersNewC They may be damaging, hugely even catastrophically damaging, but they still would not be as bad as that.

We are clearly in "kill your children, or I'll take you (very fat) wallet"-territory. 8/

@EmporersNewC Also, there's an addendum following from Steve's original tweet (and sorry to go threading on your post, Steve): The most important consequence of reneging on the NI protocol would be damage to - the UK. 9/

@EmporersNewC So, the analogy seems to be: "Kill your children or I'll take your wallet AND shoot myself in the head."

As threats go, that's pretty much a textbook failure. 10/10

@EmporersNewC Unroll please @UnrollHelper