Alongside the letter to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU is also receiving a full legal text of the proposal this afternoon, and a six-page protocol which outlines the plans.

Government sources say they believe if there is enough political goodwill on the EU side then they could enter an intense 10-day period of negotiations almost immediately, with the aim of coming to a final agreement at the EU Council in Brussels in the middle of this month.

Under the PM's plans, there would be additional checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland - because Northern Ireland would be applying certain EU rules the rest of the UK wouldn't.

But, under the proposals, the UK would not apply checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Ireland.

The government is also promising a "New Deal for Northern Ireland", with financial commitments to help manage the changes.

Chris Morris
BBC Reality Check

What they're saying in these documents is: if checks are needed, there should be a very small number of physical checks, and they should be done almost exclusively at traders' premises or other points in the supply chain.

Part of the problem with this is the EU doesn't do this anywhere else, at any border around the edge of its customs union.

And the letter from the prime minister to President Juncker says: "To enable this to happen we should both put in place specific workable improvements and simplifications to existing customs rules."

In other words, the UK is saying: "We're leaving, we want to change, and you're going to have to change your rules to accommodate us."

That's always been a bit of a sticking point because in a lot of EU capitals - not just in Brussels - people are gong to be saying: "Hang on a minute, why are we having to change our rules to accommodate you?"

I think the British argument will be: "You're the ones - as we are - saying Northern Ireland and Ireland has to be treated as a special case for obvious reasons of politics and security and so forth, and therefore you need to move a little bit to accommodate us."

Will it be accepted? We've heard the mood music: not good at all. I think it's considerably less than 50/50 in terms of the chance of getting a deal done this month.

Damian Grammaticas
Europe correspondent

The prime minister is asking the EU to sign up to no border checks at its frontier in perpetuity.

The EU will view that as a serious problem because how does it then control smuggling and collect taxes.

Will this fly? It is hard to see that it will.

Under the PM's plans, Northern Ireland would leave the EU customs union alongside the rest of the UK, so there would have to be new customs checks between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

It does envisage that a small number of physical checks would have to take place - but the proposals suggest the vast majority of checks could be carried out electronically.

If you want to read both the prime minister's letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker - and explanatory notes - they are available on the government's website. , external

In his letter to Jean-Claude Juncker, Boris Johnson says his proposals deal "pragmatically" with the consequences for Brexit on Northern Ireland.

"I hope that these proposals can now provide the basis for rapid negotiations towards a solution," he adds.

Under the plan, Northern Ireland would essentially stay in the European single market for goods through the creation of an "all-island regulatory zone".

But the Northern Ireland Assembly would have a vote on whether to enter these arrangements in the first place, and then a subsequent vote every four years on whether to preserve them.

The government has published details of its proposals to replace the contentious Irish border backstop plan in the current Brexit deal.

The details have been revealed in a letter to outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker from Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

In the battle of the deputies it's hard to triumph and disaster is never far away - but neither of those imposters muscled into Diane Abbott and Dominic Raab's first Parliamentary duel.

For the foreign secretary, deputising as the prime minister addressed the party faithful in Manchester, this appearance was a considerable test.

Dominic Raab is now First Secretary of State and de facto deputy prime minister, and both his voice and his safety-first approach to answering questions betrayed a hint of nervousness.

He is still relatively new to cabinet office, and Diane Abbott had 23 years more Commons experience to bring to bear as she rose to question him.

She noted that her colleague Paula Sherriff had received four more death threats since challenging Boris Johnson's inflammatory language in the Commons last week, and raised the anti-abortion posters which had appeared in her Labour colleague Stella Creasy's constituency.

Mr Raab tried to sound sympathetic and conciliatory, but then repeated the prime minister's description of the anti no-deal legislation as "the surrender act".

Later questions received the same combination of semi-sympathy and counter-attack.

And Mr Raab may have felt that by the time Ms Abbott had exhausted her allotted six questions (she rose for a seventh, in the heat of the argument) that he was out of danger... but there was danger behind him. First Ken Clarke, now one of the whipless Tory rebels, rose to relay John Major's complaint that a major statement of Brexit policy was being delivered to the Conservative conference not to Parliament, and that most of the cabinet hadn't been consulted.

It wasn't really a question, more a blast of scorn.

He said he was willing to vote for any deal, but hoped the new policy was not a mere ploy to blame the EU for a failure of negotiations.

"More," bellowed the Labour benches.

Mr Raab floundered a bit, promising the details would be published in Parliament today.

A little later, one of Mr Clarke's partners in rebellion, former Attorney General Dominic Grieve asked if government special advisers were allowed to tell "outright lies".

His complaint was about a story in the Mail on Sunday, which he believed had been briefed by the PM's special adviser, Dominic Cummings, that Downing Street was investigating whether the EU had funded the legal advice for his legislation to block a no-deal Brexit.

There had been no money and there was no investigation because Britain was not yet a police state, he added. Mr Raab shouted something about advisers advising and ministers deciding, and repeated the term "surrender act" but didn't provide any real answer.

And you can bet that Mr Grieve isn't about to let the matter drop. Nor were there answers about how the government plans to observe the requirements of that act..

Several challenges from Labour MPs were met with the double assertion that the government would obey the law and that Britain would leave the EU on 31 October, come what may.

So at the end of the deputies' joust, no-one was any the wiser.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, House of Commons

In the Commons, Theresa May has urged MPs to back a "landmark" bill on domestic violence in her first intervention as a backbencher since leaving Downing Street.

The Domestic Abuse Bill would place a legal duty on councils to offer secure homes for those fleeing violence, and propose the first government definition of domestic abuse.

The bill is being debated at second reading, external stage this afternoon.

Its progress through Parliament had been expected to stall because of the now-aborted suspension of Parliament, although Boris Johnson had pledged in any case to re-introduce it afterwards.

She says there is "a sadness of our society" that "so many people don't know what a good relationship is and suffer in silence before action is taken".

Image source, PA

Leo Varadkar will speak to Boris Johnson this evening about the UK's new Brexit proposals, the Irish prime minister has said.

He told the Irish Parliament that leaked details of the UK's plan were "not encouraging" and would not be the basis for a legal agreement.

He disclosed that two of Mr Johnson’s aides visited Dublin on Tuesday and briefed Irish officials and advisers, but no documents were exchanged.

As alternatives to the backstop were discussed, he urged British politicians to listen to all communities in Northern Ireland.

"The people of Northern Ireland, by a clear majority, voted against Brexit. The majority of members of the Stormont Assembly support the backstop, and the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland do not want customs posts between north and south," he said.

Addressing his party conference in Manchester, the PM says his offer requires compromise on both sides.