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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

He: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes 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 disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, 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 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, 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 skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare 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 doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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