🔗 Share this article

Meeting the Participants

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

She: Steve seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been service industry, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. 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 require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the train stop

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