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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Typically Tory, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

Steve: She seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

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

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures 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 fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

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

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. 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 build 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 small amount we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I hail 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: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze 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 consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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