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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

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

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

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

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 different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

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 love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. 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 need in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. 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 denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

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

Conclusion

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

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