🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

Voting record: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

Steve: She seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

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, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. However I just don’t think the numbers 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 authorities have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: 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 “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then 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

Common ground

He: It would be ideal 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 found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour 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 advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

He: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare 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 implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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