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Introducing the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

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

Initial impressions

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers 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 paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

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 found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

He: 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 that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe community?

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

Conclusion

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

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