Conversing Across the Divide: Viewpoints on Migration and Society

Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

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

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

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

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

For starters

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, articulate, pleasant person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus 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 develop eco-friendly systems

She: 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 need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. 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 implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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