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When the defence urged the jury to be on the right side of history, he won the admiration of historian David Olusoga and Labour MP Clive Lewis. But I wonder how many other members of the public think it is okay for Britains legal representatives to allow their function to be so dramatically changed on the basis of claims of perceived hurt and hate? You would hope that historian Olusoga would be sensitive to the fact that in the past, when people claim to be on the right side of history, things have not always ended well.

Egged on and flattered by a culture where feelings trump reason, and victimhood is the preferred currency for social status and material gains, Jake Skuse, Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford and Sage Willoughby might well feel like they are heroes in some fantasy liberation struggle.

But the verdict shows that acts, which if committed by others at different times, or different others today, would be recognised and condemned as criminal, are now resoundingly praised by the law itself.

Whether you think this is progress or regress, it shows that todays self-styled warriors have little in common with genuinely inspiring radicals and freedom fighters of the past. The likes of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Mandela or, more recently, people of Syria, faced violent oppression and repression in real life.

If statues were toppled it was part of a broader political struggle where the stakes were higher than hurt feelings.

Symbolic gestures can be important, but not when they are substitutes for politics itself. People who disagree with their politics can still find them admirable.

I doubt the same could be said for the Colston Four.

Parents often see a budding Picasso in their toddlers drawings, this is understandable, if mildly irritating.

Now lawyers are joining the queue of adults who encourage the young to see adolescent rage as political radicalism - and they are doing no-one any favours.

They only fuel a validation of victimhood and feelings over reasoned politics.

This is not a good basis for forging the kind of democratic politics and humane culture we need today.

It also encourages an extension of adolescence, witness the ages of the Colston Four (33, 30, 26 and 22 respectively).

Patrick Vernon conceded that while the toppling of Colstons statue was essentially performative, it opens an important national debate.

His view was that had the Colston Four been black, the verdict would have been very different.

This may have been likely 20 or 30 years ago, but today, his conclusion misses an important change in the meaning and function of anti-racism.

In the past, anti-racism was largely part of a struggle of people across lines of colour, united as equal citizens working out how to ensure the democratic ideals of equality and freedom were fulfilled.

It appealed to peoples sense of universal justice and encouraged social solidarity.

An accepted tenet of older anti-racism was that individuals are moral equals, even if our social status and political views differ.

Today, anti-racisms meaning and function is very different.

It is now an ideological weapon of choice for corporate HR departments and the elites who have power in our public social, cultural and academic institutions to render majority beliefs and opinions morally invalid: tainted by their association with a one-sided representation of Britains past.

Today anti-racism sees Britains history and cultural tradition as gravestones dead and silent whose only influence can be moral putrefaction.

This is deeply disempowering because without recourse to cultural and intellectual inheritances, it is harder to get our bearings, and make better judgements about the world we have in common today.

When QC Liam Walker confidently claimed that the continuing existence of Colstons statue amounted to continued veneration of his dastardly deeds, and the defendants claimed it was a hate crime, the tacit message is that if you dont hate the statue in the way we do, you can only be racist.

Who are the haters here?

Most people I know are capable of a wider range of responses, not to mention self-control, than the learned QC or the passionate faux radicals credit them with.

When Skuse claimed I knew I was in the right...everyone wanted the same thing, it suggested he cannot imagine an opinion different to his own.

Like Christina Jordan, a former South West MEP and first generation immigrant from Malaysia, for example, who said: I dont need the Sages and Milos of our country toppling a 127-year-old statue because they think they should protect me from hurt feelings.

Protection and patronage are not freedom and equality.

Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert is Head of Education atDon't Divide Us. They describe themselves as "people who are taking a stand against the divisive obsession with peoples racial identity".

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Brilliant expos of the moral wasteland of Britain's culture wars is a must read COMMENT - Express