Has it modified anybody’s thoughts?

“In 10 years’ time, Britain goes to be full of individuals sporting burqas.

“Islam can have taken over.”

Chloe Dobbs’ first phrases on Channel 4 actuality present Go Again To The place You Got here From did not depart a lot room for doubt.

The 24-year-old YouTuber and conservative political commentator from Cornwall is aware of her opinions had been “controversial”.

So was the programme. Some charities accused it of platforming “poisonous views” and giving a distorted thought of what refugees actually undergo.

However after being thrown in with 5 different Brits – all with differing views on immigration – has it altered anybody’s pondering?

Within the four-part collection, filmed in Could and June 2024, members had been cut up into two teams – one travelling from Syria, one from Somalia.

They spent weeks, accompanied by safety groups, following the identical routes refugees from Somalia and Syria use to succeed in the UK.

Latest figures from the federal government counsel that greater than 5,000 Syrians utilized for asylum within the UK within the 12 months ending September 2024, with 940 functions from Somalians.

In the identical time interval, 3,385 individuals arriving from Syria got here on small boats – the third commonest nationality to come back to the UK this manner.

The charity Freedom From Torture criticised the present as “dehumanising and downright harmful”.

It mentioned real refugees wouldn’t have the identical assets and the programme may “by no means really convey the unpredictability and the hazard of what that journey really appears like”.

Chloe travelled again to the UK from Syria, the place the UN estimates 14 million individuals had been compelled to flee their houses after the outbreak of civil conflict in 2011.

Within the collection, she was seen clashing with fellow Brit Bushra Shaikh, who had a extra sympathetic angle in direction of migrants and refugees.

Since returning to the UK Chloe says she’s in a position to see the disaster extra from her standpoint.

“Purgatory is the phrase that I might use to explain the state of affairs that so many individuals are in,” says Chloe, having now seen the disaster close-up.

“We noticed a variety of actually heartbreaking stuff.”

In the meantime, Mathilda Mallinson travelled to Somalia.

The 29-year-old journalist from London has earlier expertise working in refugee camps and tells Newsbeat she “wasn’t anticipating to have my views on immigration drastically modified”.

However by spending a lot time with the opposite members, she says she has discovered to be extra understanding of various factors of view.

“I actually do not suppose that polarised, heated, indignant debate will get anybody nearer to the center floor,” she says.

“A key a part of the journey for me was simply listening to the explanations that individuals really feel other ways.

“I used to be by no means going to be the one who helped them see… that was going to come back from assembly refugees themselves.”

Each Chloe and Mathilda agree that extra must be finished to construct a greater understanding of the migrant disaster within the UK.

“The bit that the media focuses on typically is the crossing from France to Britain,” says Chloe.

“It’s totally straightforward to suppose, in case you simply watch the information within the UK, that all the displaced individuals on this planet, they’re all coming to Britain.

“When really there are tens of millions and tens of millions of individuals elsewhere on this planet.”

Mathilda agrees, saying she was bowled over by the dimensions of the issue away from Europe, which she not often sees reported.

“It was so overwhelming to see the dimensions of the displacement disaster,” she says of after they visited Dadaab in Kenya, previously the world’s largest refugee camp.

“That is what we have to see extra of in our storytelling in our protection of the refugee disaster, as a result of it actually helps to place into proportion what we’re coping with within the UK and and in Europe.”

Now again within the UK, Chloe says she acquired “hateful messages” when the present aired however her expertise has positively modified her views “on a variety of issues”.

She says she hasn’t finished a “full 180” from the place she began and nonetheless advocates for “very robust vetting processes” for migrants who wish to come to the UK legally.

However, she says: “I began to essentially see these individuals, somewhat than simply as criminals, as human beings who’re in completely heartbreaking state of affairs.”

“It positively gave me a heck of much more empathy for what individuals are going by means of.”

A Channel 4 spokesperson advised Newsbeat it “was vital that the collection represented a variety of robust views on immigration within the UK”

“So as to have the ability to problem these views we would have liked to have the ability to air them,” they mentioned.

“The thing of the programme is to enlighten and open minds to totally different views.

“The contributors begin with views, however these views are challenged and develop over the course of the collection.”

Responding to criticism from charities like Freedom From Torture, Channel 4 mentioned it had labored intently with “various refugee charities… with a purpose to make sure that lived experiences had been precisely mirrored so far as potential”.

“We acknowledge that the collection can’t absolutely replicate the hazard of endeavor the refugee journey for actual,” they added, however the “exceptionally tight safety protocol” was put in place throughout filming “as an obligation of care to our contributors”.

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