US envoy will have to prove that he is not biased against unionists

Mr Kennedy is a former member of the United States House of Representatives.

He is grandson of the former US attorney general, Robert F Kennedy (who, like his president brother John F Kennedy, was tragically assassinated in the 1960s) and the son of Joseph P. Kennedy II, who like JP Kennedy III was also a congressman.

Mr Kennedy thus comes from American political royalty, but very much the royalty of the Democratic Party, which he represented.

The Democratic Party in the 1980s was strongly partisan in favour of a united Ireland and Irish nationalist politicians. Indeed, Mr Kennedy’s father, JPK II, was so biased in his nationalism that he boycotted the late Queen’s memorable address to both houses of Congress in 1991. While leading American politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties gave the visiting monarch a rapturous reception, Mr Kennedy stayed away "in protest to the British occupation in Northern Ireland". Three years before he got into a verbal spat with a British soldier in NI, telling him to “go home”.

It was recognised in the 1990s that the Labour Party in the UK and Democratic Party in the US could not possibly be neutral brokers here if they were going to be so partisan against unionists. Both parties accepted this, and changed towards a more neutral stance. Senator George Mitchell, a Democrat, was widely respected in NI for his lack of prejudice.

Now, since Brexit, the US Democrats seem to be returning to anti Britishness.

Mr Kennedy cannot be held responsible for his family, and his role is believed to be mostly economic. But at this sensitive time of relentless bias against unionists he will, from the start, be having to prove that he can win the respect of both communities.