WHEN the shadow of evil consumes all light social media draws us towards other bleak locations. In these places we seek to channel our anger and to be reassured that our liberal outrage is the ethical one. When Wednesday morning brought us news of 39 dead, the frozen freight of an unspeakable channel crossing, it wasn’t enough simply to spare a thought for them and offer a silent prayer. We sought out those websites and Twitter accounts of wretched familiarity to salve our consciences with the ugliness of others.

The electronic comments on right-wing newsfeeds duly delivered a predictable slurry of inhumanity about migrants and talked of a fate deserved. Thus assuaged we retreated to our higher place and fumed in righteous indignation. In the dismal lexicon of online fury we had chosen to weaponise tragedy to reinforce our political viewpoint. And it’s not long before we will blame it on Brexit and those who are its most fervent supporters. Thus, a little more of the essential dignity of those poor, poor people is eroded. They were the victims of something truly wicked and which requires no political context or framework.

Perhaps by hunting down those we consider to be purveyors of intolerance we conveniently anaesthetise our own contaminated scruples. In recent surveys of our social attitudes we Scots, who consider ourselves to be more enlightened and progressive than our English neighbours, are confounded by their findings. We are just as suspicious and fearful of migrants as the rest of the UK and of being consumed by a tide of refugees.

This also poses a tricky dilemma for some of us who consider ourselves to be socialists while also hungering for independence. We are all born equal members of the entire human race and the place of our birth is a random accident of nature. A country can no more be said to possess a specific set of values than a forest does. The dignity and innate sanctity of all human beings is what matters and not their countries of origin. We have no more rights of tenure to this landscape we crashed upon than any others with whom we share the planet. This is not to say that striving to decide your own civic arrangements is an empty undertaking, simply that it must always be hitched to the universal quest for fairness and equality.

The emerging narrative on the Purfleet horror is now gathering around Chinese gang-masters and their trafficking in human misery. From there it’s only a short hop to disengagement. “You see: this isn’t really our problem; it’s, you know … a cultural thing. It’s not like we could have done much about it.” And we spare ourselves from having to think too much about what it must have been like to have lived inside that lorry for a few days and then finally to know that you were going to die in it.

An important survey was published this week by Cardiff University and the University of Edinburgh. This found that a majority of Leave and Remain voters across England, Scotland and Wales think violence towards MPs is a "price worth paying" for either of their favoured outcomes on EU membership.

It also found that a majority of Remain voters across all three countries think protests in which members of the public are badly injured are also a price worth paying to stop Brexit and remain in the EU. It seems superfluous to add that the majority among Leave voters is larger in each case. I’m not sure where this leaves us or what it says about the character of political engagement right now. Perhaps, though, we might pause before we talk about human rights standards in those countries we traditionally abjure for being uncivilised.

Last week we also caught sight of a different type of immigration and foreign criminality. This strain comes dressed in designer suits, Louboutin shoes and places at Britain’s most exclusive schools and universities. It’s also powered by the same trade in human despair that murdered 39 foreign nationals on a ferry crossing from Belgium to England.

Research by Transparency International, the anti-corruption campaign group, found that £300bn of suspect funds and assets have been eased through an assortment of UK banks, law firms and accountants. It is then used to decorate lifestyles of eye-watering opulence for a global cast of villains who have long viewed the UK as the pin-striped broker of their dirty money.

The campaign group reports that the money is emptied from the exchequers of poor countries by corrupt officials and the brigands who are permitted to gain power in these countries. Among the many specific cases it cites is that of the corrupt former prime minister of Moldova (now jailed) whose 22-year-old son was jouking around in a £200,000 Bentley.

We also got to discover that there is a market for consultancy firms specialising in obtaining places at elite schools and universities for children who would have fallen at the first academic entry hurdle. This might go some way to explaining historic and continuing causes of the banking crisis, bad government and battlefield negligence. The uninterrupted flow of this money usually has its source in the exploitation and repression of innocents. It also relies on the willingness of respectable British companies to look the other way and never to question the unusual injections of cash into their accounts.

Nor is this a recent phenomenon. When the Shah of Iran was deposed in 1979 it was conveniently overlooked that he had bled his country dry to fund an egregiously extravagant lifestyle for him and his family. He was then provided with a well-funded bolt-hole by Western powers in recognition of his benign attitude to their activities in the Arab states. It’s how discreet and civilized Western diplomacy is conducted. We preferred though, to revile the Ayatollahs who understandably nursed a resentment of the West for indulging the looting of their country.

On Wednesday we were given a rare glimpse of the human cost of international criminal enterprises. Every day across the world many other victims of geo-political crime remain invisible. While we continue to indulge this we have no right to stop its victims seeking refuge at our door.