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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time 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, articulate, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly 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 arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: 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 fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. 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 great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, 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 energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money 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 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

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

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. 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 very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. 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 theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

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

Conclusion

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the station

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