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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

She: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

Steve: She came across as a very bright, articulate, pleasant person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers 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 governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. 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 oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the future. 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 hydro

Dessert topics

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

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. 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 implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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