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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

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

Eva, 25, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

She: Steve seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

He: She seemed like a very bright, articulate, nice person

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

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity 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 moving towards environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

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 Chrisp Street 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 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 feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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