Brexit: UK and EU reach deal on Northern Ireland border checks

The UK and EU have reached agreement on how rules in the Brexit divorce deal will be implemented, particularly in relation to Northern Ireland.

The government says an agreement in principle has been found for issues including border control posts and the supply of medicines.

The government says it will now withdraw controversial clauses in the Internal Market Bill.

However negotiations to reach a post-Brexit trade deal are still ongoing.

The details of the agreement have not been published but are expected to be rubber stamped in the coming days.

They will apply regardless of whether the two sides can agree a trade deal.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said he was "delighted" and thanked the European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič for his teams "constructive and pragmatic approach".

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney welcomed the news and expressed the hope that this would "provide some of the positive momentum necessary to instil confidence and trust and allow progress in the wider context of the future relationship negotiations."

The withdrawal agreement - or divorce deal - sets out the details of the UK's exit from the EU.

What happens next with Brexit?

Northern Ireland is the only land border between the UK and the EU.

Under an arrangement known as the Northern Ireland protocol - which is part of the withdrawal agreement - from January, goods will not need to be checked along the Irish border and the region will continue to enforce the EU's customs product standards rules.

This means, in order to comply with EU requirements, some checks will be needed on certain goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales).

Over the past year, Mr Gove and Mr Šefčovič had been engaged in talks on how these checks should be implemented.

In September, the EU expressed anger when the UK government published its Internal Market Bill, which would have enabled ministers to ignore some of the Northern Ireland protocol requirements.

For example, under the Brexit deal, companies moving goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain would have to fill out export declaration forms, but ministers would have been able to overrule this.

However as the UK and EU have now reached an agreement in principle, these clauses will be removed from the bill.

The government has also promised not to add similar clauses to the Taxation Bill.

This is a Brexit breakthrough.

But not on those three sticking points we've heard so much about in the last few days: fishing rights, competition rules and enforcing any agreement.

You may remember all of the rows over the last few years about the border on the island of Ireland: how do you keep it open, with Northern Ireland outside of the European Union, and the Republic within it?

The solution, in the Brexit divorce deal, the withdrawal agreement, was that Northern Ireland would remain more closely aligned to the EU than the rest of the UK.

But a Joint Committee of the UK and the EU has been working out the practicalities of how to make this work.

The government had threatened to breach the withdrawal agreement in two planned new laws, in what ministers saw as a "safety net" to ensure the free flow of goods around the UK, whatever happened.

But as a result of this agreement, that threat has now been withdrawn.

What has happened today is a necessary, but far from sufficient step as the two sides attempt to reach a free trade deal.

Meanwhile efforts to reach a UK-EU trade deal have stalled over disagreements on fishing rights, business competition rules and how any deal would be enforced.

Boris Johnson - who is due to travel to Brussels this week in a bid to break the deadlock - has described the situation as "very tricky" but added that "hope springs eternal".