Dining across the divide: ‘She’s not unwelcoming or racist but she thinks immigration is creating a brain drain elsewhere’

10 hours ago 5

Samuel, 34, London

Occupation Communications professional

Voting record Was a Labour party member from the age of 16, resigned three months ago and joined the Green party. Intends to vote Green in future

Amuse bouche Has published a very silly book about philosophers’ dogs

Catrina, 24, London

Occupation Currently unemployed, was previously a caseworker for a hospital homelessness team

Voting record Has voted in two elections – Lib Dem, tactically, when she lived in south Gloucestershire; then Green

Amuse bouche When Catrina was sent home from university during Covid, she worked in a mortuary, then used that experience for her dissertation

For starters

Catrina He was incredibly smiley, very bubbly and effervescent. He was wearing a fetching pink suit, which was his wedding suit.

Samuel I thought she was great. She’d just got back from four months trekking the Silk Road, I was slightly jealous. She was very intellectually curious, obviously a good talker. The conversation flowed.

Catrina It was a bit of a cultural hodgepodge, the menu, German but also Korean – I had a hotdog for my main, we also had an oyster. We had a few cocktails as well.

Samuel I had a lobster roll and an oyster, followed by a Korean doughnut.

Samuel and Catrina chatting at a restaurant table

The big beef

Catrina When I say I think there’s too much immigration, I’m basing that off the 900,000 figure, which I think is from 2023. My reasoning is that if we’re thinking about migration as something that happens not just to the UK but to the world, in many cases the UK government is recruiting workers from countries like west Africa, where there’s a skills shortage. I don’t think that’s an ethical thing to do.

Samuel It’s not that Catrina’s unwelcoming or racist; it’s more that she was concerned that by allowing a vacuum in our system, which needs doctors etc to come and work for us, we were creating a brain drain elsewhere. I said it reminded me of that Stewart Lee anti-Ukip sketch: “I think the brightest and best should stay in Bulgaria”. She said that was her favourite sketch.

Catrina A lot of net migration comes from an international student base, and universities cannot afford to turn anyone away. I absolutely love living in a multicultural country, but this doesn’t benefit anyone.

Samuel I understood her point. But the reason people want to come here is that we have such an amazing higher education system. It’s not international students who are the problem; it’s putting profit before people.

Sharing plate

Catrina When it comes to the wokerati, yes, it has gone too far. But I say that because I think there’s an overemphasis on individual action in contemporary “woke” politics. Racism and sexism are systemic societal issues, and we all participate in society. Individualising it makes people reluctant to engage.

Samuel Catrina and I are probably thinking of people like Ash Sarkar or Slavoj Žižek, who argue that the problem with woke culture is that it’s dividing the left. It doesn’t need a debate: you treat human beings as you’d like to be treated, you go through life showing love and respect, and people return it to you.

For afters

Catrina Sam was more optimistic than me about the potential for AI and technology. I think social media is really complicating our politics and diminishing people’s quality of life.

Samuel It’s difficult to completely disagree that social media algorithms keep us trapped in doom spirals. But I come at it from the point of view that you’ve got all of these incredible advances in technology over the last 200 years, that speak to the desire of humans to connect with each other and find answers to the puzzles we’ve been wondering about for ever. AI is helping screen more effectively for cancer.

Takeaways

Catrina We exchanged numbers. He was a really nice man, I’d love to catch up with him again.

Samuel She gave me a postcard that she’d picked up from Kazakhstan, a picture of this old disused industrial site where someone’s painted this lovely mural on an unloved wall. I thought that was really beautiful. It left me thinking: “God, I should have done something thoughtful like that.”