🔗 Share this article

Meeting the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

Steve: She seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll need in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

Steve: I think we parted on good terms. We had a hug at the train stop

Eva: We both said that we’d had a wonderful evening