After months of wrangling, prime minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, have reached a new agreement on Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit arrangements.

The “Windsor Framework” rewrites the Northern Ireland Protocol, which itself took years – and two prime ministers – to thrash out.

That old deal, signed by Boris Johnson, had attempted to balance three competing aims: the EU’s desire to protect its single market, Westminster’s desire to keep Northern Ireland joined up with the rest of the UK, and all sides’ commitment to avoid a “hard” border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

(We looked at this in more detail during the Brexit negotiations.)

But the previous Protocol meant that trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK was mired in costly bureaucracy.

Beyond the direct economic effects, this became a political flashpoint for many unionists, who want to stay close to Britain.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has refused to take part in the Stormont assembly – leaving Northern Ireland without a functioning devolved government – until what it sees as the de facto border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK is removed.

That division is, according to Rishi Sunak, now a thing of the past. “One of the key achievements of the Windsor Framework is that it removes any sense of an Irish Sea border,” he told the BBC this morning, repeating a claim he made last night.

“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.

But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.

For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”.

This is less arduous than the previous arrangements, which the Framework says carried the “threat of up to 500 certificates for a single truck”.

But remember: Rishi Sunak is claiming that the new deal doesn’t just lessen the burden on traders, but removes “any sense” of a border in the Irish Sea. It’s difficult to square that with the terms of the Windsor Framework.

And what about the claim that “when goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy”?

Yet again, the Prime Minister appears to be at odds with his own deal. Page 9 of the Windsor Framework says there are circumstances when customs checks will occur: “There will be no customs checks, except for risk-based and intelligence-led operations targeting criminality and smuggling”.

Indeed, in the same BBC interview, Mr Sunak went on to say that there would be checks for goods in the “red lane” (i.e., where it’s reasonable to assume that the products will pass through Northern Ireland and into the Republic of Ireland).

But he did not seem to acknowledge the contradiction between this admission and his claims a moment earlier to have “remove[d] any sense of an Irish Sea border” and that goods “will now move without customs bureaucracy”.

Professor Michael Gasiorek, Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy, told FactCheck that Mr Sunak’s claim to have removed any sense of a border is “unfortunately not quite correct”.

While he acknowledged that “to some extent it is a question of semantics: what constitutes a border, or customs arrangements?” Professor Gasiorek noted that some goods will still need to be checked under the Windsor Framework, and that the document requirements are not the same as they are between England and Wales.

More generally, he said, “the debate isn’t helped by politicians saying things that aren’t quite correct”. Though he said overall, “I do think it’s a good deal”.

A Downing Street spokesperson told FactCheck: “Unlike an international customs border, the Windsor Framework’s green lane means we remove burdensome customs paperwork, duties and routine checks for goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland – removing any sense of a border in the Irish Sea for UK-only trade.

“Traders using the green lane will only need to provide ordinary commercial information when moving their goods. This is the same type of information there would be when goods moving from Birmingham to Isle of Wight, such as from sales invoices and transport contracts, that businesses will already hold.”

FactCheck verdict

It looks like the new Northern Ireland Brexit deal, christened the Windsor Framework, will reduce the administrative burdens on businesses trading goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

But it’s not clear that Rishi Sunak can claim that the deal “removes any sense of an Irish Sea border”. The Framework spells out bureaucratic processes that traders will still have to comply with – arrangements that would not apply between other parts of the United Kingdom.

Downing Street told FactCheck: “Unlike an international customs border, the Windsor Framework’s green lane means we remove burdensome customs paperwork, duties and routine checks for goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland – removing any sense of a border in the Irish Sea for UK-only trade.”