Britain’s parliament voted on Thursday to overhaul Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trade rules, paving the way to break the deadlock in the region’s government after a two-year hiatus, Reuters reported.

MPs in the House of Commons approved the changes without a formal vote, including reducing controls on goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland, addressing the biggest complaint of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Shortly after the vote, the DUP formally convened the Northern Ireland parliament to form a power-sharing government, a key part of the 1998 peace deal that ended decades of political violence.

The Northern Ireland Assembly will have to meet to elect a speaker and appoint the first minister of the future local government.

She is expected to be Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s vice-president, the big winner of the last local election, the province’s first. “We have a lot of work to do,” she said.

Northern Ireland has been left without a devolved government after the pro-British DUP left government in protest at post-Brexit trade rules it says have created barriers with the rest of the UK and undermined Ireland’s place as the North within it.

The government shutdown in recent weeks has led to mass strikes by public sector workers demanding a delay in salary increases.

For the first time in history, Irish nationalist Sinn Fein will take over as prime minister after winning a majority of seats in the 2022 regional elections.