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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

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 Norway?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

He: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. 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 implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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