Why some unionist politicians turn red-faced and quivering at the word ‘Biden’

As Joe Biden’s Air Force One plane makes its approach to Ireland’s west coast, you’re probably wondering “Why do unionist politicians hate President Biden so much?” Or you may even be scratching your head and wondering “Do unionist politicians really hate President Biden as much as some say?”

Scratch and wonder no more. They do detest the man. Not so much as an individual (although we’ll come back to that) but more because he’s an American president and for decades now, American presidents HAVE BEEN STICKING THEIR NOSES INTO WHAT IS BY RIGHTS A PURELY INTERNAL UK MATTER. For years after the Troubles started, unionism strove with might (and, of course, main) to keep the problem watertight, sealed off from outside nosey parkers. Because if they allowed it to become internationalised, that would in some way suggest that NEI was a separate and maggot-infested entity, somehow different from the rest of the UK. And you know how much unionist politicians HATE to be taken as something other than a part of the UK, even and maybe especially when they obviously ARE something other than part of the UK. Like part of Ireland. So Biden comes as latest in a list of American presidents – Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama and now Biden  – who insisted on parading about, yammering on about Irishness and Irish ancestry and Irish bloody shamrocks on St Patrick’s Day. Green shamrocks, what’s more.

Which brings us to the special neuralgia that is felt by some unionists at the very thought of Joe Biden. Yes, unionist politicians have to swallow hard and traipse over to Washington on Paddy’s Day, but that doesn’t mean they like it. And they particularly find that Biden sets their teeth on edge because he shouts things like, so everyone can hear: “You’re BBC? No thanks. I’m Irish!”  I mean, what could be more starkly sectarian and lacking in respect than that?  Well, try this: didn’t he say that green ties would be welcome in the White House BUT NO ORANGE TIES? Something to that effect, anyway. I mean, how low can you go? Imagine a man who occupies the White House saying he’s on the green side of the Irish argument, not the orange. OUT-BLOODY-RAGEOUS!  And then there’s the way he walks, as if he was going to trip. And the way he crinkles his eyes, as if he’s laughing or maybe half-blind. And he’s forever buttoning and unbuttoning that damned jacket of his.And he can’t put three words together without saying ‘Marmalade’ or something seriously daft.

And worst of all, he’s only touching down in NEI as a sort of rest spot before going down to the south and east and west of Ireland. Yes, yes, he’s going to cut the ribbon on Ulster University’s city-centre campus. But I’ll tell you this: if he says ONE SINGLE WORD about how it should be called Six Counties University in the interests of geographical accuracy, every right-thinking unionist will storm his big armoured car, and take it from me, those security Yanks talking into their wrists had better stand clear. ULSTER HAS SUFFERED ENOUGH.