Northern Ireland appeared to be heading for a second election of the year on Wednesday after efforts by the UK government to resolve months of political deadlock over its post-Brexit status failed to materialize.

Chris Heaton-Harris, UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has held talks with political parties to persuade them to form a new executive.

If no agreement is reached by Friday, London is legally obliged to hold snap elections for the devolved assembly in the volatile province.

It has been without a functioning government since February after the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) toppled the executive branch over its staunch opposition to post-Brexit trade rules there.

She wants the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol agreed by London and Brussels as part of the British Brexit deal in 2019 to be revised or abolished altogether. They say it weakens the province’s place within the UK.

Many unionists also argue that the pact threatens the delicate peace balance between the pro-Irish nationalist community and advocates of continued union with the UK.

The measures, which effectively keep Northern Ireland within the European Union’s internal market and customs union, were agreed to avoid the return of a hard land border with the neighboring Republic of Ireland.

Abolishing this hard border was a key element of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

The pro-Irish party Sinn Fein scored a historic first election victory in May, further complicating efforts to restore power-sharing.

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said on Wednesday he had reiterated to Heaton-Harris the need to “clear the debris of the protocol”. An election would do little to resolve the stalemate, he said.

“I don’t think it will help us get to the solution we need faster or get the political institutions working again,” he added.

Donaldson noted that the party was nonetheless prepared to challenge a new vote.

Sinn Fein leader Michelle O’Neill, who is set to become Northern Ireland’s first minister if the executive can be reinstated, renewed her call for the DUP to end its boycott.

“I appeal to those blocking an executive to work with the rest of us and put money in people’s pockets,” she tweeted Wednesday.

The UK government, battered by political turmoil that has seen three prime ministers in two months, has urged Brussels to overhaul the protocol and is passing controversial legislation to tear it up.

That has raised fears of a trade war and deteriorating ties with Europe when the economic landscape is already bleak.