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Meeting the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked 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

Eva: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

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

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. 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 tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money 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 in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

He: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

Eva: We both said that we’d had a lovely time