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Brexit discussion thread VII (Please read OP before posting)
Comments
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ToBeFrank123 wrote: »Looks like the Irish government may have over-played its hand re the backstop.
The House of Commons, particularly this House of Commons, (voted in on the back of the Leave result) was never going to accept a Backstop without legal guarantees or it being time limited.
If we end up with a hard border it will be a huge failure by both Irish and British politicians and history will not look kindly on them.
Well I completely and utterly blame the Tories, 100%. I suspect everyone else will too.0 -
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ToBeFrank123 wrote: »That's a case of how long is a piece of string. The UK want guarantees that if the technologies can't be implemented fully, they are not tied into a backstop indefinitely. Reasonable point, as there is no proven technology to stop someone smuggling Brazilian beef to Southern Ireland for example. They want to be able to walk away from a backstop agreement rather than be tied indefinitely to it. You get the feeling the EU are trying to tie them in indefinitely.
The EU have made it clear they want to make it nigh on impossible for anyone to leave the EU.
The UK is the one that proposed the backstop in order to move on negotiations. They are also the ones who suggested the technological solution to the backstop and claimed they are easy to implement.
If the EU wanted to make it impossible for a country to leave the EU then why would they even bother implementing article 50 which allows a country to leave the EU. It makes no sense. The UK has formally asked to leave the EU and they are leaving the EU.0 -
Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »It's off topic I know but I could not let such spin just sit there.
They lost 21 seats between the 2015 and 2017 elections
The Conservatives gained 13, Labour gained 6, the Lib Dems gained 3
Support for IndeyRef2 quelled at that stage.
and still they hold almost 60% of the seats
No comment on the pro-indepdendence majority in the SP?0 -
ToBeFrank123 wrote: »Looks like the Irish government may have over-played its hand re the backstop.
The House of Commons, particularly this House of Commons, (voted in on the back of the Leave result) was never going to accept a Backstop without legal guarantees or it being time limited.
If we end up with a hard border it will be a huge failure by both Irish and British politicians and history will not look kindly on them.
Yawn
Brexit is a UK problem of their making.
Try harder0 -
The hard border is one of those times that one has to acknowledge that sometimes lessons have to be learned the hard way.
You can warn a child five times that they're going to hurt themselves, but if they don't listen to you then sometimes you need to let them hurt themselves so they get the message. It hurts you and the child, but in the long run everyone is better off.
If the UK refuses to relent on its red lines, then a hard border is short-term pain that will hopefully teach the UK that its hubris is misplaced, and then we can all negotiate and co-operate like equals.0 -
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Well I completely and utterly blame the Tories, 100%. I suspect everyone else will too.
I blame Labour too for not being strong enough once the result was known.
I said it before, a stronger opposition between June 2016 and June 2017 and TM would have not dared risk her Commons majority.
If we were still working with 2015 GE numbers the DUP would have zero infulence and the border issue would have been solved in December 2017.
But no, Labour were all over the place, May sensed an opportunity to increase her majority and now we find ourselves in this mess.0 -
ToBeFrank123 wrote: »Varadkar said he's not going to back down and he's not for turning on the backstop and he and the EU have offered no legal guarantees about its limitations.
The UK have clearly said they don't accept this.
We are in a stand off. That's fine, but it means a hard border becomes more of a probability.
Neither side willing to back down, or compromise. Its pathetic really. And both sides will suffer for it, us included. The price of every basic foodstuff will rise for a start.
The EU have compromised, many in the EU didn't like the compromise they offered up, but they went with it anyway.
Secondly, the backstop is a proposition from the UK.0 -
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Golfer999999 wrote:looking for a silver lining here - does No Deal brexit mean duty free at ports and airports going to the UK?
Any Brexit means that.0 -
ToBeFrank123 wrote: »Nope. Better an agreement that avoids tariffs on both sides. Otherwise you will pay a lot more for flour/bread and other imported goods from the UK of which there are many.
And our farming and beef industry will be ruined.
Any kind of hard border and more so tariffs will be a disaster.0 -
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ToBeFrank123 wrote: »Looks like the Irish government may have over-played its hand re the backstop.
The House of Commons, particularly this House of Commons, (voted in on the back of the Leave result) was never going to accept a Backstop without legal guarantees or it being time limited.
If we end up with a hard border it will be a huge failure by both Irish and British politicians and history will not look kindly on them.
The only people to blame are the ones who imposed the red lines and stuck to them so far ie the Tories
Worth pointing out again
1. WA with no backstop = hard border
2. WA with time limited backstop = threat of hard border / hard border
3. Reject WA = hard border
4. Negotiated WA = no hard border
5. Revoke Article 50 = no hard border
I am picking either 4 or 5, how about you?0 -
if you be specific about something paisley said that was absurd then I will certainly address that as best I can.
I completely accept that what another poster pointed out he had said about milk entering the south was not accurate. But can you point something significant that you think was nonsense
It wasn't me you asked to do it....but
The very first question put to him, what are the "alternative arrangements"....waffle waffle waffle....bla bla bla....HOC voted this, Teresa May is negotiating it....in other words...no answer! Then included in his answer is the notion that WA treats NI differently to the rest of the UK (and repeated it three more times), which it doesn't!
Then he went on a rant on the negotiations being pointed towards suiting domestic Irish politics....and wasn't asked to elaborate on that - which would have been a good laugh. Then expressed the never fading opinion hat the French and Germans will tell Ireland to shut up and move aside (that was supposed to have happened long before now) - then repeated that also.
Then was asked about the £1 Billion of investment promised to NI in return for DUP propping up the Tory's which hasn't happened - and he ignored the question. Instead, (and this is the best bit) he has a right good laugh at how terrible it would have been to have a Labour party Government instead of the Torys, with it's MPs jumping ship the previous night, totally unawre of the fact that literally as he spoke, 3 members of the Tory party were said to be about to jump ship too. He actually used the word "instability" to describe the chaos that a Labour party government wold have brought....ohh the irony!
Then he somehow held up investment withdrawal from a non-EU country (Turkey) as evidence of the fact that the Japanese are seeing the EU as a poor place to do business.
Then he went on a rant about the Millennium Bug and somehow equated that not coming true to evidence that Brexit doomsday will not coming true.
He then spoke about the most head scratching bit....the UK always having been a good neighbor to the RoI (without the "800 years" rebuttal)....he held up the £7.2 Billion bailout contribution as an example (£7.2 Billion just happened to be the exact amount of exposure British banks had to a potential Irish bank collapse), how we fish in their waters but don't allow them to fish in ours, how we sell milk to them but they can't sell milk to us (which has already been shown to have been ridiculous).
Then finally he glossed over the IRA statement that checkpoints would be shot at, and seems to suggest that nobody could set up a hard border! He scoffed at the idea NATO could set it up when I have never in my life heard anyone suggest NATO would be doing so.
Is that enough?0 -
The hard border is one of those times that one has to acknowledge that sometimes lessons have to be learned the hard way.
You can warn a child five times that they're going to hurt themselves, but if they don't listen to you then sometimes you need to let them hurt themselves so they get the message. It hurts you and the child, but in the long run everyone is better off.
If the UK refuses to relent on its red lines, then a hard border is short-term pain that will hopefully teach the UK that its hubris is misplaced, and then we can all negotiate and co-operate like equals.
I don't think English Brexiteers are that worried if there'll be a hard border in Ireland or not, especially the "No deal is better than a bad deal crowd". Their stance is "Give us what we want or we get what we want", and that's doubly bad if claims that the ERG are running the conservative party. It's all the potential economic fallout from Brexit that will make the UK government relent on its red lines.0 -
Thanks, Laois_man for taking the time to be more thorough in your reply than I was.
I suspect downcow will disappear for a little while without addressing any points made in either of our posts and then come back making the same points in a short time as if this never happened....0 -
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I don't think English Brexiteers are that worried if there'll be a hard border in Ireland or not, especially the "No deal is better than a bad deal crowd". Their stance is "Give us what we want or we get what we want", and that's doubly bad if claims that the ERG are running the conservative party. It's all the potential economic fallout from Brexit that will make the UK government relent on its red lines.
I really, really try to avoid getting into generalising demographics of millions of people but I can't stress enough how little concern NI was to people here pre-Brexit. If I am going to be brutally honest, most people thought of NI a bit like I did of Kosovo, ie it's a place where there was a lot of violence when I was young.
It's not so much that they don't care. They just have little to no interaction with Northern Ireland as it's the most remote part of the UK so they can't really relate to it. In addition, NI has its own particular set of political issues the overlooking of which is now causing significant problems for the government which is acting to remove the GFA which had almost solved these problems for good.The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 19:34
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I'll put aside your inability to realise you're still trying to speak for large groups, leaving you with one little tip. Instead of, "I believe that large numbers of Unionists think"....just try, 'I think'.
At least i am not trying to speak for absolutely everyone!.... whether folk take a remain or a leave position, everyone seems sure that the BBC coverage is biased....0 -
The EU have compromised, many in the EU didn't like the compromise they offered up, but they went with it anyway.
Secondly, the backstop is a proposition from the UK.
The withdrawal agreement is 99% there.
The sticking point appears to be legal guarantees the backstop is not permanent.
Guess what folks, hard border, punitive tariffs, queues at the border, rise in bread prices, loss of thousands of jobs, all that are on the way if no agreement can be completed.
So either we reach a deal or both sides shoot themselves in the foot. Some fools would prefer the latter because they don't want to give in to the "evil" brits.
Btw, anyone who thinks I'm taking the British side on here is basically an idiot unworthy of my time. As I said I'd hate to see us shooting ourselves in the foot but that's exactly where we are heading, cheerleaded all the way by some buffoons.0 -
Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »At this stage I for one am willing to see a hard border so that it shows to the UK that they cannot be out of everything and still have a open border on this island
What on earth does that even mean? You want to see a hard border with the 6 counties then?0 -
Well I completely and utterly blame the Tories, 100%. I suspect everyone else will too.
And the Tories blame the Irish.
And that has advanced the situation 0%. Neither side are willing to move. Both sides have to move or else hard border is an inevitability.
I still can't believe there are some people who would welcome a hard border on this island.0 -
I'll put aside your inability to realise you're still trying to speak for large groups, leaving you with one little tip. Instead of, "I believe that large numbers of Unionists think"....just try, 'I think'.
At least i am not trying to speak for absolutely everyone!.... whether folk take a remain or a leave position, everyone seems sure that the BBC coverage is biased....
Rhetoric versus actually suggesting I'm speaking on behalf of 'everyone', but fair enough, I'll agree that I could've been clearer and said, "large numbers from both sides seem to be of the opinion that the BBC is biased against them"
Somewhat different when my point is actually evidenced by comments posted here and on the BBC Have your Say section, whereas yours you're just expecting us to believe statements about alleged conversations you're having.
Anyway, moving on from that, are you going to address the specific points you asked for, presented just below the part of my post you quoted? Or the more thorough response from Laois_man?
I'm not sure why you asked for examples to rebuke if you were just going to ignore them....0 -
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Thanks, Laois_man for taking the time to be more thorough in your reply than I was.
I suspect downcow will disappear for a little while without addressing any points made in either of our posts and then come back making the same points in a short time as if this never happened....
Imagine agreeing with such a stream of fallacious ignorance and then trying to claim that a 'large number' of unionists would be in agreement.
How does that stream of wrong from Ian Paisley pass for political discourse?
Fairly easy playbook being a successful unionist politician up there by the looks of it. Forget policy just go for a succession of sneers grounded in identity politics.
SF staying silent while knowing that the DUP can't ever refuse a microphone is doing more for SFs relative standing than being front and foremost ever could.0 -
ToBeFrank123 wrote: »What on earth does that even mean? You want to see a hard border with the 6 counties then?
I'd prefer to see the WA passed and a trade agreement after the transition period but in the absence of the WA passing I'd take a hard border to prove to the UK that they cannot be out of the customs union, out of the single market have no backstop and still have a open border.0 -
ToBeFrank123 wrote: »And the Tories blame the Irish.
And that has advanced the situation 0%. Neither side are willing to move. Both sides have to move or else hard border is an inevitability.
You're insistence that 'both sides moved' is based on 'Brexit is an inevitability.' That's not the case. Millions of UK citizens have petitioned for another vote.I still can't believe there are some people who would welcome a hard border on this island.
Lots of misguided people out there.0 -
ToBeFrank123 wrote: »And that has advanced the situation 0%. Neither side are willing to move. Both sides have to move or else hard border is an inevitability.I still can't believe there are some people who would welcome a hard border on this island.
The UK is asking that we accept their request to put up a hard border, or they'll let it happen anyway.
So the hard border you didn't agree to is better than the one that you did.0 -
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I have to say when I listened to the Ian Paisley Junior interview last night I was filled with a sense of unbridled rage. This morning, I'll try to deal with it with a more level head.
First off, Russia Today are paid for by the Russian government and they like to interview fringe characters and present unusual views. I say this not to disparage RT, but rather because it bears repeating that it would have been very different if he was allowed onto BBC or RTE to say these things.
Second, Ian Paisley Junior is only recently back from being suspended from Westminster for failing to declare hospitality provided to him and his family by the Sri Lankan government. The DUP also sanctioned him. So, notwithstanding that his father was the founder and spiritual leader, he is somewhat of an outsider, even in the DUP.
As to the substance of what he is saying, the suggestion he makes is that the backstop is to do with Irish domestic politics in that Leo Vardadkar is trying to stave off the "right wing" Sinn Fein. Eventually, he says, the business leaders of France and Germany will put Ireland in its place over this. There are a couple of points to be made about this:
1) There is no domestic political issue about the border. All parties, even the smaller parties, are united around the government's position that a hard border is an unacceptably bad outcome of Brexit, and that everything possible should be done to prevent it i.e. the backstop. No one disagrees with that in the Dail.
2) There is, however, significant discord in U.K. domestic policy as to whether the backstop can be agreed or not. I infer that, in Paisley's mind, the defeat of the Withdrawal Agreement means that the Parliament doesn't support the backstop. However, 202 MPs voted in favour of the withdrawal agreement, and not all of the 432 who voted against did so because of the backstop. There are over 200 Labour voters who voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, and the only thing that Labour have been clear on as regards Brexit is that they support the backstop. Rather than try to get cross party consensus with Labour, Theresa May has opted instead to try to appease the 80 or so ERG members plus the 10 DUP MPs by talking about the backstop. Ultimately, the only place where the backstop is an internal party political issue is in the U.K.
3) Angela Merkel has stated that peace in Northern Ireland is a top priority, and has given her support to the approach of the EU negotiators to provide a backstop. Macron has likewise denied that there would be any give on this issue. It would be one thing for Ian Paisley Jnr to have said that they might put pressure on Ireland a year ago, but that trick has been tried by Brexiteers and was roundly rejected. So he's kind of repeating a canard that has already been debunked.
4) The real reason why he is saying these things, I think, is because he has the Brexiteer fantasy of seeing the EU collapse. His hope would be not just that the backstop is abandoned, but that France and Germany would publicly shame Ireland, the proverbial throw us under the bus so that Ireland would then return to our Euroscepticism, refuse to ratify future treaty changes and potentially leave the EU ourselves. We would probably not do so, under such a situation, but that is the logic of Brexit. The more disharmony is caused in the E.U., the better.
As regards his milk and fishing comments, these aren't true but like all Brexit issues there is a kernel of truth in them. There was a breakdown of certain fishing rights in 2016 due to a Court case. I also suspect that his milk comment is to do with situations where dairy farmers in Northern border counties use dairies in the South and vice versa.
Regarding the army not being armed, I think he must have meant the Gardaí rather than the army, as the Irish army is generally well regarded for its size, in particular its Ranger Wing. It goes without saying that even in the event of a hard customs border, one would hope that there won't be any need to set up army checkpoints on the border. But that sadly is a possibility if the Brexiteers get their way.
Obviously NATO forces wouldn't be coming to Ireland but what exactly does Paisley want to achieve here? That the PDF will have to get an increased budget and will have to improve its equipment and numbers etc? Is that really want the Northern Unionists want? It is probably what Paisley wants, because then he could point to the increased military spending as evidence of his mistaken belief that the Irish State is a threat to Northern Ireland.0 -
Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »I'd prefer to see the WA passed and a trade agreement after the transition period but in the absence of the WA passing I'd take a hard border to prove to the UK that they cannot be out of the customs union, out of the single market have no backstop and still have a open border.
Jacob Rees Mogg, Boris Johnson, Farage and all the others driving this and I despise them by the way, couldn't care less about a hard border in Ireland. If fact Mogg has said as much, that he doesn't care if the UK crashes out without an agreement and with a hard border in Ireland. They don't care. So its not them who will suffer. Its the people of northern and southern Ireland, and particularly those in border counties. They will suffer. Mogg doesn't give a sh*t nor did he give a sh*t about the 3500 Swindon Honda workers. All they care about is the so called "Home Counties". Its like he and others are on a mission to impoverish everyone in the UK except a small elite.0 -
This would be inaccurate. Both sides compromised and agreed on the backstop. Then the UK moved backwards and changed their mind. You're right that both sides have to move. Ireland has moved, it's up the UK to do so now.
May had no mandate to agree anything. Her mandate comes from the House of Commons.
Her agreeing to the backstop holds about as much value as you or I agreeing to it.
The issue was always getting it through the Commons, which she was never going to be able to. She had her a*s handed to her when she tried.0 -
It wasn't me you asked to do it....but
The very first question put to him, what are the "alternative arrangements"....waffle waffle waffle....bla bla bla....HOC voted this, Teresa May is negotiating it....in other words...no answer! Then included in his answer is the notion that WA treats NI differently to the rest of the UK (and repeated it three more times), which it doesn't!
Then he went on a rant on the negotiations being pointed towards suiting domestic Irish politics....and wasn't asked to elaborate on that - which would have been a good laugh. Then expressed the never fading opinion hat the French and Germans will tell Ireland to shut up and move aside (that was supposed to have happened long before now) - then repeated that also.
Then was asked about the £1 Billion of investment promised to NI in return for DUP propping up the Tory's which hasn't happened - and he ignored the question. Instead, (and this is the best bit) he has a right good laugh at how terrible it would have been to have a Labour party Government instead of the Torys, with it's MPs jumping ship the previous night, totally unawre of the fact that literally as he spoke, 3 members of the Tory party were said to be about to jump ship too. He actually used the word "instability" to describe the chaos that a Labour party government wold have brought....ohh the irony!
Then he somehow held up investment withdrawal from a non-EU country (Turkey) as evidence of the fact that the Japanese are seeing the EU as a poor place to do business.
Then he went on a rant about the Millennium Bug and somehow equated that not coming true to evidence that Brexit doomsday will not coming true.
He then spoke about the most head scratching bit....the UK always having been a good neighbor to the RoI (without the "800 years" rebuttal)....he held up the £7.2 Billion bailout contribution as an example (£7.2 Billion just happened to be the exact amount of exposure British banks had to a potential Irish bank collapse), how we fish in their waters but don't allow them to fish in ours, how we sell milk to them but they can't sell milk to us (which has already been shown to have been ridiculous).
Then finally he glossed over the IRA statement that checkpoints would be shot at, and seems to suggest that nobody could set up a hard border! He scoffed at the idea NATO could set it up when I have never in my life heard anyone suggest NATO would be doing so.
Is that enough?
...and i feel i need to say in advance - these are my views only
The very first question put to him, what are the "alternative arrangements"....waffle waffle waffle....bla bla bla....HOC voted this, Teresa May is negotiating it....in other words...no answer! Then included in his answer is the notion that WA treats NI differently to the rest of the UK (and repeated it three more times), which it doesn't!
I understand WA insists on a open border on Ireland and insists any checks take place on Irish sea. And insist a tie-in with alignments between NI and EU. So you are fooling yourself if you don';t think WA threatens to place NI in different position from UK
Then he went on a rant on the negotiations being pointed towards suiting domestic Irish politics....and wasn't asked to elaborate on that - which would have been a good laugh. Then expressed the never fading opinion hat the French and Germans will tell Ireland to shut up and move aside (that was supposed to have happened long before now) - then repeated that also.
I agree with him. EU would approach this very differently but for the Irish problem.
I believe the EU will soon lean on ROI - and you can look back to where i have said it would not happen until after the vote on the 14th which has been poistponed so the leaning will also be postponed - but it is coming - i think
Then was asked about the £1 Billion of investment promised to NI in return for DUP propping up the Tory's which hasn't happened - and he ignored the question. Instead, (and this is the best bit) he has a right good laugh at how terrible it would have been to have a Labour party Government instead of the Torys, with it's MPs jumping ship the previous night, totally unawre of the fact that literally as he spoke, 3 members of the Tory party were said to be about to jump ship too. He actually used the word "instability" to describe the chaos that a Labour party government wold have brought....ohh the irony!
The £ib has nothing to do with this - but yes we are benefiting from it but UK would be mad to hand it all over now with no guarantee on ongoing dup support - that would be as ridiculous as an indefinite backstop
as you point out at the time of interview only 7 labour had jumped ship so i don't know what your point is
Then he somehow held up investment withdrawal from a non-EU country (Turkey) as evidence of the fact that the Japanese are seeing the EU as a poor place to do business.
I don't know how the car thing is being reported near you, but it is widely reported by leavers and remainefrs that it was the decision of EU to allow no tarrifs on car imports from Japan has made it a no brainer for them to move their production out of EU - I think you can accept that if it was related to brexit and it refers to an action far in the future that they would wait until after 29 mar to make the decision
Then he went on a rant about the Millennium Bug and somehow equated that not coming true to evidence that Brexit doomsday will not coming true.
Yes - do you remember that other project fear
He then spoke about the most head scratching bit....the UK always having been a good neighbor to the RoI (without the "800 years" rebuttal)....he held up the £7.2 Billion bailout contribution as an example (£7.2 Billion just happened to be the exact amount of exposure British banks had to a potential Irish bank collapse), how we fish in their waters but don't allow them to fish in ours, how we sell milk to them but they can't sell milk to us (which has already been shown to have been ridiculous).
Iam not relistening to it but are you sure he said 'always'. i believe we have been good neighbours and improving all the time over last few years up until 2 years ago
Then finally he glossed over the IRA statement that checkpoints would be shot at, and seems to suggest that nobody could set up a hard border! He scoffed at the idea NATO could set it up when I have never in my life heard anyone suggest NATO would be doing so.
He treated that threat with the contempt required0 -
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ToBeFrank123 wrote: »The withdrawal agreement is 99% there.
The sticking point appears to be legal guarantees the backstop is not permanent.
Guess what folks, hard border, punitive tariffs, queues at the border, rise in bread prices, loss of thousands of jobs, all that are on the way if no agreement can be completed.
So either we reach a deal or both sides shoot themselves in the foot. Some fools would prefer the latter because they don't want to give in to the "evil" brits.
Btw, anyone who thinks I'm taking the British side on here is basically an idiot unworthy of my time. As I said I'd hate to see us shooting ourselves in the foot but that's exactly where we are heading, cheerleaded all the way by some buffoons.
TM negotiated a deal.
Then she didn't like the deal and has asked for changed. What if they make the time period 20 years? That would give them a time period so they will instantly agree?
And what happens after 20 years if no new technology is developed? What happens then? Would a hard border go up or do they simply extend it a bit more?
And you do realise that the border is just the symbolic part of it? How are the UK going to deal with standards, tariffs, payments to the EU. Are the UK going to continue to contribute to the EU budget? Will they agree to further integration during the time? What about further projects which could lead to an increase in the £39bn
The border and the backstop are just the excuse the likes of the ERG are using to make it look like they are being reasonable. Let us not forget that they see compromise as paying what they owe! They actually see that as a generous gesture on the UKs part!0
This discussion has been closed.
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