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Introducing the Participants

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

She: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, 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 can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. 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 coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, 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 predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a embrace at the train stop

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