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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

Political history: Typically Tory, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

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

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: 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 came across as a very bright, well-spoken, 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 definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the figures 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 authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish 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 imported; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, 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 Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. 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 look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

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

Conclusion

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

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