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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Conservative, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

He: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

She: 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 told me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers 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 understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: 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 agreed 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 allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require 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, turbine fields and water power

For afters

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. 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 “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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