Dining Over the Divide: Perspectives on Migration and Culture

Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Tory, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. 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

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop 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 coming years. 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, windfarms and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments 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 Chrisp Street 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 Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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