Conversing Across the Gap: Viewpoints on Migration and Culture

Meeting the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Conservative, except when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

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

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very bright, articulate, pleasant person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by 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 religion

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. 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 “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 consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

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

Takeaway

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

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