Conversing Across the Gap: Perspectives on Immigration and Society

Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: 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 essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs 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 – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. 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 Norway?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require 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 greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. 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 poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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