Dining Over the Gap: Viewpoints on Immigration and Culture

Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

Voting record: Typically Conservative, 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 kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, articulate, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be great 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. 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 require in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. 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 their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

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

Conclusion

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the station

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