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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: 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 cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

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

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

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

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; 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 international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money 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 in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity 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 greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – 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 discriminatory 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 modernized. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a hug at the station

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