Local elections are taking place in Northern Ireland this week for the first time since the power-sharing executive collapsed in February 2022.
While only councillors are up for election in this vote, the results will be instrumental for whether the DUP drops its boycott of Stormont over the Irish Sea border and accepts Rishi Sunak's new Brexit deal.
Here, The Telegraph outlines everything you need to know ahead of the elections.
Council elections will be held on May 18 this year, two weeks after elections elsewhere in the UK. They were delayed to avoid overlapping with the King's Coronation.
The elections use the single transferable vote system, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference if they wish.
Northern Ireland will elect 462 councillors across 11 councils.
The councils are Antrim and Newtownabbey; Ards and North Down; Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon; Belfast City; Causeway Coast and Glens; Derry City and Strabane, Fermanagh and Omagh; Lisburn and Castlereagh City, Mid and East Antrim; Mid Ulster; and Newry, Mourne and Down.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is refusing to return to power-sharing at Stormont, despite Rishi Sunak's new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.
The local elections results will be influential over whether or not the DUP drops its boycott over the Irish Sea border, which has lasted since February 2022.
Polls suggest loyalists and hardline unionists will desert the DUP for the hardline Traditional Ulster Vote (TUV), which is virulently anti-Protocol and anti-Windsor Framework.
The DUP is expected to delay any decision to return to Stormont, and implicitly back Mr Sunak's new Windsor Framework, until after the local elections.
If the DUP bleeds a huge amount of support to the TUV, it is likely to harden its stance. But if it performs well, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the party's leader, may be emboldened to return to the Assembly.
The DUP pulled out of Stormont in February last year, ahead of Northern Ireland Assembly elections in May.
Sinn Féin won that election, beating the DUP to become the largest political party in Northern Ireland for the first time in the region's history.
The victory means that Sinn Féin are entitled to the post of First Minister for the first time.
However, the DUP, the largest unionist party, has refused to return to Stormont, which operates on the basis of a mandatory power-sharing coalition between the largest unionist and nationalist parties.
There are 90 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Sinn Féin won 27 seats and the DUP 25, dropping three seats from the previous election.
The centrist Alliance party, which does not classify itself as either unionist or nationalist, performed strongly and won 17 seats.
The two parties that played a crucial role in the Good Friday Agreement were kept at the fringes. The Ulster Unionist Party won nine seats, while the centre-Left SDLP took just eight.
The hardline unionist TUV took a single seat, as did the Left-wing People before Profit.
The count begins on May 19, the day after polling day.
It is up to the DUP, which is divided between its MPs in Westminster, who favour a hard line approach, and MLAs in Northern Ireland, who prefer a return to Stormont.
The DUP cannot prevent the new Brexit deal being implemented in Northern Ireland, but it can paralyse any devolved government.
There have been suggestions that the unionists could return to power-sharing in Autumn, but any decision will be informed by the results of the local elections.
It will also depend on whether the Government and Brussels can offer the DUP any changes or clarifications to the deal they struck in February, which both have so far ruled out.
Meanwhile, the DUP is under pressure from Northern Ireland's other parties to return to Stormont.
It risks alienating voters angered at delayed action to cut NHS waiting lists and cost of living crisis support, but polls have shown loyalists and some unionists favour the toughest possible line on the Irish Sea border.
The Government has set a January deadline, which has already been pushed back several times, for the DUP to return to Stormont.
If the deadline is missed, fresh Stormont elections could be called in a bid to resolve the deadlock.
However, the DUP is unlikely to lose its status as the largest unionist party so it will be able to prolong the boycott after that vote if it chooses to do so.
The DUP will lose some support by accepting the new Brexit deal and returning to power-sharing. The question is by how much, and if they decide to take the hit.
Sign up to the Front Page newsletter for free: Your essential guide to the day's agenda from The Telegraph - direct to your inbox seven days a week.