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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

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

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: 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 love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need 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, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. 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 look like a foreigner. People gaze at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance 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 theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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