If there's one thing Channel 4 loves, it's lobbing a controversial reality show into its programming. Its latest offering - Go Back to Where You Came From - flies anti-immigration Brits to two of the world's most destabilised cities and has them do the dangerous and illegal assault course run by millions of asylum seekers to reach the UK. With recent news of net migration projected to push the UK's population to 72.5m by 2032, will it springboard useful discussion on the divisive topic or make newly-minted Far Right celebrities of some of the contestants? I dread the latter.

The premise is designed to get your back up, starting with the name. It's marginally better than “I'm a Bigot, Get Me Out of Here!”, which, from the first episode, feels far more fitting. Six participants are introduced on the white cliffs of Dover, the symbolic - and for many, the literal - gateway into the UK. There's haulage firm owner Nathan, a proud Yorkshireman who believes Trumpian border walls are the way to go. Chef Dave has only left the country twice and wants the Navy to bomb illegal boats crossing the Channel. We meet Jess, who despite experiencing prejudice as the only gay woman in her tiny Welsh village, misses the irony in attacking other minorities. And Chloe, a young GB News regular branded “Thatcher incarnate” by another participant for her extreme views.

These four are challenged by two left-leaning characters. Business owner Bushra, for whom immigration protests boil down to simple racism. And Mathilda, a liberal Londoner, who believes “people are being manipulated by right-wing politicians and media”. With opinions so deeply entrenched, is there space for another perspective? It doesn't feel like it at first. “Why are people risking their lives to be here?” Nathan asks.

He soon finds out as he, Jess and Mathilda travel to Mogadishu in Somalia, where decades of civil war have shattered the city. “It’s not Benidorm, is it?”, he deduces, before repeatedly calling the marketplace a “sh*thole”, understandably attracting “death stares” from the locals. They soon make a hasty exit. Meanwhile, Dave, Chloe and Bushra head to Raqqa in Syria, where ongoing conflict has displaced millions. “Do you know when the bombs are coming?” Dave asks their driver in the conversational tone of someone asking after the next 47 bus.

Meaningful discussions within the groups are non-existent; it’s the very worst parts of online comment sections vocalised inside heavily armoured vehicles as they navigate mounds of rubble. But the penny seems to drop as each group meets real survivors whose lives have been ripped apart, hearing their stories and everyday life under unthinkable constraints. The group’s Tesco Value suggestions are as cringey to our ears as you imagine they are to the displaced, but they are directed towards the adults, who are imagined to have a scintilla of power or agency.

Nathan, Jess, Dave and Chloe seem to believe illegal immigrants fleeing their homes have the same level playing field as those in the UK - access to sanitation, government help, family planning. “Why would you have another child when you can’t afford your first seven?”, Jess asks a pregnant refugee in a Somali IDP camp, the idea it may have been a forced conception never entering her consciousness. Talks on Western and white privilege, FGM, and poverty are handled with all the sensitivity of a demolition ball. You feel embarrassed to share the same passport as these people.

It's seeing kids as young as his son scavenge for rubbish to recycle for pitiful amounts of cash that finally shifts something in Dave, despite Chloe claiming they’re “getting an entrepreneurial kick out of it”, as though it’s a twisted kids version of The Apprentice. He is so moved he makes their family dinner, dipping into his own pocket to buy the ingredients. Perhaps there is hope, you wonder, a thought immediately dashed by Chloe who insists she still wouldn't help and it's not the UK’s problem. I'm convinced she's a cyborg; what other explanation for such a steely absence of empathy?.

It’s left to Bushra and Mathilda to present counter-views, but emotions run high and things quickly spiral into pointless screaming matches. Adding a political expert or historian might have helped steer the group away from dog-whistle headlines but I guess there’s only so much body armour to go around. Go Back to Where You Came From is shouty, it's antagonising, it will add even more noise to an issue that’s already at fever pitch. I appreciate what Channel 4 is trying to do but fear it will simply stir online echoboxes into spewing a fresh batch of extreme views. Will it change perspectives or give the Far Right fresh faces to use for validation? Granted it’s early doors, but frankly, it all feels futile in episode one.