The least that unionists can do is show contempt for Congressman Neal’s pro-Irish bias, masquerading as neutrality

For more than 25 years, US leaders of goodwill have taken an interest in Northern Ireland.

It was in the 1990s that American politicians realised the need to be impartial over the bitterly divided politics of the Province. Previously, Democratic Party leaders had been outspokenly pro-Irish nationalist, while the Republican Party tended to be quietly pro-UK.

By the mid 1990s, Bill Clinton, as part of his reformist approach to liberal US politics, made an effort to be neutral between Irish nationalist and Ulster unionist. He had annoyed London in granting Gerry Adams a visa to America, but otherwise trod a diplomatic path.

Later, distinguished figures such as Senator George Mitchell and the envoy Mitchell Reiss also worked hard to win confidences across NI’s tribal divide.

But in 2019, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Richie Neal shattered that consensus on their anti-Brexit tour of Britain and Ireland. Unionists were polite.

Now Congressman Neal is back on a flagrantly one-sided mission to defend a Northern Ireland Protocol with which Irish republicans – to whom he has been politically close – are so delighted.

While America faces its own profound political and social problems, he is telling the UK foreign minister what to do about a part of her own nation. As the Tory commentator Henry Hill has written, “why must we be subject to pictures of our Foreign Secretary grinning and bearing it whilst our ‘most important ally’ jets over to try and kick the legs out from under her negotiating position?”

There is a serious case to be made that unionists should not meet this man today and give credence to his claim that he is on some ‘bipartisan’ mission. But while nationalists would certainly boycott a US delegation that was pro-Tory and pro-Brexit, and was trying to scold and instruct Dublin, unionists are never given the same leeway.

Thus the least they should do is make clear that they have relayed to Mr Neal their contempt for the way he masquerades as neutral while being such a determined advocate for nationalist Ireland.

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• John Redwood May 20: The government must act soon over Protocol – NI unionists want their country back