Don’t allow Britons back from Syria – survey

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The survey, which received 1,172 responses, asked under what circumstances it is morally justified for Britons to travel to Syria.

It found that a quarter of people polled felt it was morally justified for Britons to travel to Syria to fight with rebel groups against the Assad regime.

The poll also found that less than half of people polled felt it was morally justified to travel to Syria to deliver humanitarian aid or assistance.

The responses come in a week Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said that Britons travelling to Syria will face arrest when trying to re-enter the UK.

People who took the survey were asked to answer the question by ticking one or more of four options.

The options were that it is morally justified for Britons to travel to Syria:

• to deliver humanitarian aid or provide humanitarian assistance
• to join moderate rebel fighters
• to join extremist rebel fighters
• they can go – just not come back

The option that “they can go – just not come back” was ticked 580 times as of 11am on Friday, or 49.5 per cent of the total. It was the most selected option in the survey.

“Delivering humanitarian aid or providing humanitarian assistance”, as was done by Noaman Ali and Faisel Qarbni in a Channel 4 News report, was selected by 48.8 per cent of respondents.

In total 288 people selected one or both of the options “to join moderate rebel fighters” or “to join extremist rebel fighters”, accounting for 24.6 per cent of responses.

The majority of these responses said it was justified for Britons to travel to Syria to join moderate rebel groups – 23.3 per cent of people who responded to the survey selected this options.

However, 5.3 per cent of people who responded said it was justified for Britons to join extremist rebel groups, such as the al-Nusra Front.

If you would like to take part in the survey, and see results as they are updated, click here.