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| - Two men have been charged with criminal damage over graffiti attacking post-Brexit border arrangements in Northern Ireland, as fears grow that new checks could reopen old wounds. The pair aged 21 and 25 were arrested on Saturday, accused of daubing "All bets are off" and "We do not support the Irish Sea border" -- a reference to the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit divorce deal -- as well as targeting crosshairs. Although staff were pulled from Larne and Belfast ports last week after similar threats, a judge said there was no evidence the men threatened port officials, charging them only with property offences. Special arrangements for Northern Ireland since Britain definitively quit the European Union have effectively kept it in the bloc's customs union and single market for goods. The aim is to prevent the emergence of hard border infrastructure with EU member state Ireland, a boundary that became a flashpoint during the conflict over British rule that left 3,500 people dead over three decades to a peace deal in 1998. But with checks shifted to goods arriving from mainland Britain, pro-British unionists believe their constitutional position in the United Kingdom is being undermined. "The clear barriers it places between our islands, our families, friends and fellow citizens, in travel and trade, is the very opposite of an 'unfettered' United Kingdom," said unionist group the Apprentice Boys on Monday. Meanwhile a petition by the province's governing Democratic Unionist Party to end the border checks now has 135,000 signatories. jts-phz/tgb
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