Conversing Across the Gap: Viewpoints on Immigration and Culture

Introducing the Participants

Steve, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

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

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live 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. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been service industry, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. 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 used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach 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 rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. 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 Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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