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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Political history: Usually Conservative, except when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, 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 half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

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

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on innovation

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

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze 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 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 community?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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