HOW wrong I was. Like many, I presumed the invasion of Ukraine would bring a halt to our self-cannibalising Culture Wars. I thought we’d put our differences aside, and realise, on the precipice, that the issues which unite us – the belief in freedom and democracy - are so much greater than the bitter battles around identity which divide us.

Instead, Russia’s invasion has fomented its own Culture War, with the same disinformation, cruelty, stupidity and bad characters as the Culture Wars which have disfigured political debate for years now.

What makes this all the more depressing – aside from the bloodied truth that Ukrainian civilians are dying in their droves while we could do more – is the fact that the vast majority of us are broadly in agreement about what’s unfolding: that Putin is a war criminal murdering an innocent nation.

However, in this extremist age, there’s inevitably a small knot of grotesque voices amplifying Putin’s lies. Most, inevitably, are online, but some come in the shape of professional commentators. These bad actors are found on all sides – from left to right, Yes to No.

READ MORE: We are all now in a war for the future

I’m most troubled by my own ‘side’. How I hate that word, for isn’t it ‘sides’ which led the west to the sorry state of division we’ve been in for years? By my own side, I broadly mean ‘the left’. There are people I share beliefs with – even shared a stage with – who disgrace themselves today over the invasion of Ukraine.

Many years ago, I wrote a book denouncing the invasion of Iraq. My voice was part of the anti-war movement and I’m very proud of that fact. I’ve spoken out in defence of the people of Palestine, and condemned Britain’s on-going role in dreadful, criminal wars such as the one currently destroying Yemen.

However, a handful of those who rightly spoke against such terrible events in the past, now condemn Britain and America for standing by Ukraine. Though the truth is, we aren’t standing by Ukraine enough. They mouth Putin’s lies that this war should be blamed on ‘Nato expansion’. This war isn’t about Nato expansion, it’s about Russia invading Ukraine. Ukraine has every right to want to be part of Nato. It’s a free nation; free to make its own choices. These people said little, remember, about Putin’s atrocities in Syria.

We hear those same voices peddle claims Ukraine is in the clutches of neo-nazis. Again, a direct reiteration of Kremlin propaganda. No far right parties were elected to Ukraine’s parliament. President Zelensky is Jewish, for pity’s sake. It’s western nations – like Britain, France and Germany – which have a record of seeing the far-right in position of power. Remember the BNP’s Nick Griffin taking a seat in the European Parliament, the rise of AfD in Germany, or the Front National (now rebranded as National Rally) in France?

These one-time ‘friends’ of mine on the left make mistakes which will shame them in the eyes of history: they cannot differentiate between the crimes which Britain and America committed in the past, and what’s happening today. Yes, the US and UK should be condemned for Iraq, for Yemen, and, yes, our countries did far too little, if anything, to speak up for the people of Palestine. But that doesn’t mean our countries are in the wrong today. The west needs to – in fact, must – atone for its sins of the past, but that doesn’t prevent us doing the right thing now.

READ MORE: How invasion affects push for independence

There are those on the right who are just as bad, if not worse, though. Some on the right, you see, simply idolise Putin. We have them here, America has them too. These are the people who admire a strongman; who pretend to be democrats when in truth they’re half in love with the idea of dictatorship.

Some come from extremist fundamentalist Christian backgrounds, or are clad in a veneer of respectability to hide their white nationalism but they’ve watched Putin, and they like his assault on freedom, his trampling of minority rights and women’s rights, his ‘defence of white Europe’. Unlike the far-left apologists, I fear these voices on the far-right. The left are simply idiots who shame themselves; these right-wingers, though, would kill democracy if they could.

There are those on the right also who refuse to see that if we care about what’s happening to Ukrainian civilians, we have to equally care about what’s happened and still happening to civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Yemen, and so many other nations where we’ve interfered. The sight of Tories bellowing support for Ukrainian refugees while wanting to turn British boats against other refugees is cynical, hypocritical cruelty. All refugees matter.

Then we see the war play into Scotland’s constitutional row. As a moderate independence supporter, I’m repelled, together with the vast majority of Yes voters, by the fringe voices claiming some equivalency between Ukraine and Scotland – that Scotland is also the victim of ‘imperial’ oppression. Idiocy as propaganda. The Yes movement should make a show of shunning these voices.

On the No side, there’s some squalid hardline unionist voices who claim that the Yes movement is a tool of Putin because it wants to break up the UK. It’s an insult to the democracy we live in, and the No camp should also make a show of shunning these voices.

Simmering throughout all these various disgraceful camps, however, there’s one type which seems to boast its own psychopathy: those who sneer at empathy. Ordinary people are making little gestures every day – which is, in truth, all that ordinary people can do – in support of Ukraine. But they’re derided for ‘virtue-signalling’ (surely a term only deployed by the most loathsome amongst us) and mocked for ‘showing empathy’. Dear God, without empathy what are we – animals?

Perhaps, though, it’s the British government which most disgraces itself. It speaks of standing by Ukraine, yet slams the door on Ukrainian refugees. To attempt to accrue glory while doing so little is contemptible. One wonders how the likes of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel could watch Zelensky in Parliament this week and applaud, while leaving his people to their fate.

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