THE Tory press was mainly hostile to Joe Biden during his visit. This is not a mark of strength, but of powerlessness.

It now seems perfectly acceptable for British politicians to attack Biden simply for being Irish-American.

The media widely implied that he could not be trusted simply because of his Irishness. His critics on this front included some of our “respectable” media. The BBC was not immune.

In part this shows just how deep-rooted anti-Irish prejudice is in some parts of British society. 

After all, if you are going to occupy a country and then consciously depopulate it, then demonising its people is a necessary accompaniment.

Yet it is quite intemperate when this prejudice is directed at a US president. He is head of state for “our oldest and most important ally,” as the ritual diplomat-speak has it.

He may be so for many years to come. It is stupid politics, and you can be sure the US embassies in both Britain and Ireland will have relayed headlines such as “Why Joe Biden’s Irishness overshadows his visit” (The Times).

This is not just bad politics. It betrays a lack of willingness to face reality by unionism in general, on both sides of the Irish Sea and including the Conservative and Unionist Party.  

They are angry because of their own impotence. The Tories huffed and puffed and said they would blow the Northern Ireland Protocol away, taking with it even this awful Brexit deal. This would have left us with no deal and a potential trade war with the EU.

The unionist parties even said they believed them. But the protocol is still standing, just relabelled the “Windsor Framework.”

And if anyone thinks that this is substantially different from the protocol, they may have been drinking too much Irish whiskey.

Throughout my entire active political life “Ulster says No” has been the rallying call for unionism.

Not just no to power-sharing, or the Good Friday Agreement itself, or the protocol, or even talks. Unionism has been saying no to all forms of political and social progress.

Who can forget the 1970s “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign led by the late Rev Ian Paisley to prevent the decriminalisation of homosexuality?

But there has been progress on all these fronts and more, even if the pace is often glacially slow.

Clearly, unionists and unionism are not the real masters of their own political destiny.

How could they be as an outpost of a long-dead empire, representing a small and declining minority on the island of Ireland?

The reason unionists feel able to be so spectacularly intransigent is because they are led to believe they have the backing of successive British governments.

Yet, as their hero the stellar Edward Carson found, unionism is always betrayed by British governments who cannot turn back the flow of history.

It flows only in one direction, towards the reunification of Ireland. This is not because of some devious plot by global supporters of Fenianism, nor even because of British government duplicity, although there is plenty of that.

It is because the Northern Ireland state was conceived as a sectarian enclave in Ireland, an outpost to benefit the British empire and its dominance of global trade and shipping.

All of those have long gone and are not coming back. Eventually the political settlement in Ireland will catch up.

The alternative is the prospect of a united and prosperous Ireland, which can flourish even further given its special status that benefits from easy access to both the European Union and British markets.

It is already the case that there has been a huge catch-up in living standards in the republic and on some measures average living standards there are now higher than in Britain.

It is unquestionable that living standards are now much lower in Northern Ireland than either the rest of Ireland or in Britain.

One small but significant measure of that change in relative living standards is that there are now reports of doctors and nurses leaving the NHS here to go to the republic and to other countries, which is a reversal of the historical trend. (Of course, this simply reinforces the health workers’ argument for restoration of the pay cuts they have suffered).

However, unionist intransigence remains the most important block to progress, both in Ireland and in Britain.

For its own reasons, this US administration wants to promote progress, as most of its predecessors have done.

Biden has even dangled $6 billion in new US investment if there is a return to power-sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly. But Ulster, in this case the DUP, still says No.

On this, it is important to understand that unionist parties do not represent the interests of their own voters.

Certainly not their economic interests. Instead, they represent an idea of unionist identity, which defines itself in opposition to and with supremacy over Irish nationalists.

Which explains why one unionist MP responded to Biden’s offer by declaring that “unionists cannot be bought!” 

Huge sums that could aid economic development are rejected out of hand because it would mean a return to power-sharing.

This may seem strange, as unionists have shared power before, including the DUP. But at the assembly election in May last year the dominant unionist parties were dominant no more, getting just 40 per cent of the vote between three parties.

Worse, from their perspective, is that the DUP registered just 21 per cent of the vote compared to Sinn Fein’s 29 per cent.

Under the assembly rules, this means that an Irish republican must lead the government in a state designed to maintain unionist ascendancy.

This assembly has never met, on the spurious unionist objections to the protocol.

The real position is they refuse to be number two, as Martin McGuinness was to Ian Paisley when the situation was reversed. The British government has repeatedly breached the law in postponing new elections if an assembly cannot be formed.

We should be clear, the unionists, with the connivance of the British government, are flouting basic democracy.

They refuse to accept the reality of international relations, of their own economic position and the verdict of voters. This cannot continue.

The labour movement in Britain has every interest in opposing this anti-democratic backlash.

Over decades, repressive legislation and practices have been developed in Northern Ireland and later used here.

Unionists have repeatedly propped up Tory governments against the will of the people here. The anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement is moment to recommit to democracy in Ireland, not to suppress it.

Diane Abbott is Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. She served as shadow home secretary from 2016 to 2020.