Conversing Across the Gap: Perspectives on Immigration and Culture

Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Typically Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, 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 seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, 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, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

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 used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. 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 innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff 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 ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds 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 supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail 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 look like a foreigner. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a hug at the station

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