system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 the Northern Ireland Protocol

read about a survey where the majority of the support was for the protocol, a change from when the majority were against it. ELI5 what is it?
gpt
The peace treaty that ended decades of civil war in Northern Ireland was the Good Friday Agreement. Part of the Good Friday agreement said that the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland must be completely open ie people can come and go across it as they please bringing whatever they like with them. 

As part of Brexit the UK decided it wanted to leave not only the EU but the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and so have totally different rules for regulating the manufacture of products than the EU/EFTA.

So here you have a contradiction because the EU obviously has to be able to inspect goods that enter the EU from areas where they are not subject to EFTA rules (to ensure compliance with those rules), but the Good Friday Agreement basically says no goods inspection processes can be allowed because that would make it not a fully open border.

So the Northern Ireland Protocol is an agreement between the UK and EU to square that circle. It has two different parts to it

- Northern Ireland agrees to continue to follow EFTA rules for regulating and manufacturing products to make sure that all products in Northern Ireland are legal within the EU and thus the border can stay open with no checks.

- the UK agrees to institute checks on goods moving from the rest of the UK into Northern Ireland, to make sure that noncompliant goods available in the rest of the UK are not imported in to Northern Ireland. 

So basically the UK can continue to make and sell goods that don't comply with EFTA rules in the rest of the UK, but it can't move those goods into the EU under EU rules and under the Northern Ireland Protocol it can't make them in Northern Ireland and nor can it make them in the rest of the UK and then import them into Northern Ireland. In exchange the border can stay open with no checks.