Conversing Over the Divide: Perspectives on Immigration and Society

Introducing the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: 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 longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

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

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, 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 cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: 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 appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” 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 not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. 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 fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. 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 had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

Eva: We both said that we’d had a lovely time