🔗 Share this article

Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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 longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be receptive

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

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

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could come here 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 reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll need 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 greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: 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 very Muslim. She gave a slight glance 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 community?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown 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 station

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