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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both Labour and Green

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

For starters

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

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

He: 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 exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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 build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, 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 very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

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