Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a new podcast from Politics Home.

I'm your host Alan Tolhurst and each week I'll be taking an in-depth look at the week's biggest

political stories with fellow Politics Home reporters and special guests from across Westminster.

Last week's local elections served a historic result in Northern Ireland, where she in fame one the most seats in the Assembly

for the very first time,

giving them the right to hold the post of First Minister.

Second place, DUP have threatened to prevent

a new executive being formed,

expressing particular opposition to the post-Brexit Northern Ireland

protocol, which the UK government is looking increasingly

likely to scrap.

This could threaten a trade retaliation from the EU at a time when the UK is already dealing with the cost of living crisis. However, UK government claims doing so would

protect the Good Friday peace agreement. Joining me this week to discuss the new wave of turbulence for

the province is our political letter to Adam Payne, as well as two special guests, columners for the

Irish Times, Finn McRedmond, along with former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Conservative MP Julian Smith. Starting with you, Adam, you've just

returned from Belfast, where you've been meeting with some of the key figures in Northern Irish

politics. Can you explain where we are at the moment and a bit about how we got to this point?

Yes, so I was in Belfast for three days earlier this week, meeting people across the political spectrum following last week's

result and as you said alan shinfain were returned as the largest party last week the first time

ever that a nationalist republican party was returned as the largest party but we're going to be

without a fully functioning executive in northern Ireland for the foreseeable future,

it seems. And that's because under the power sharing arrangement that was established as part

...