Using security as Brexit bargaining chip is reckless and lacks credibility

Raffaello Pantucci, the director of international security studies at the London thinktank the Royal United Services Institute, said there could be a benign interpretation: that May was just flagging up that the UK is a big actor in terms of European security. He estimated that about 40% of the information going to Europol came from the UK and the European counter-terrorism strategy had been lifted almost word by word from the UK’s one. But he added: “I like to hope and think this is not a direct threat that the UK would turn a blind eye to incidents on the continent. It is a bit surprising.”