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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

She: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money 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 explained it to me in a new light. 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 abolish the system; it was revised in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

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 Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

Steve: 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. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a embrace at the train stop

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