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Introducing the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open

Steve: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on technology

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

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they used that money to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount 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 environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

He: I come from the eastern part of London. 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 that local market, I appear out of place. People stare 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 Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a embrace at the station

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