Dining across the divide: ‘My family are all Trumpian, so I’ve had a lot of practice talking to people who are far right’

Occupation Compliance officer
Voting record Sam is American so can’t vote in the UK yet, but when she can she intends to vote Green
Amuse bouche She is an expert knitter. She started when she was five and makes socks, mittens, hat, jumpers – if you know Sam, she’s knitting you something

Roger, 80, north-west London

Occupation Retired accountant
Voting record Never Labour or Tory. He’s always voted for “outliers” such as the Greens, and now Reform
Amuse bouche In 1978, he was an internal auditor and was sent to Angola during the civil wargoing on. He bribed soldiers with cigarettes to let him get to the frontline because he “wanted to hear the guns”

For starters

Roger I got there early and had a pint of beer, and when Sam arrived we got on famously right from the start. We were both surprised at how much we had in common.
Sam I wasn’t very nervous – my family are all Trumpian, so I’ve had a lot of practice talking to people who are far right.
Roger I started with a beautiful dressed crab with two slices of soda bread and a chunk of butter. For main I had fish and chips, and we were too full for dessert.
Sam I really enjoyed the dressed crab, then I had a wild mushroom risotto with broccoli stems, and a Coke.

The big beef

Roger ​​ I don’t like net zero – I think it’s all happening too quickly. We’re doing all of this electrification too early. I think we should use the resources we’ve got: continue to extract more oil and gas from the North Sea until it’s all gone, and then you can have your electric cars.

Sam I think the climate crisis is a big problem, and the number one priority to reduce the effects would be to stop producing CO₂. It’s been proved that a decrease in beef production and an increase in plant consumption would really help.
Roger The way to fix the climate crisis is to control the population. I think the UK is dangerously overdependent on imports of people, as well as food, energy and other things. We should encourage local production, expand our fishing fleet and exploit North Sea fossil fuels until they’re exhausted.
Sam I pointed out that his desire to drill for more oil contradicts his opinion on self-sufficiency in food production because the more CO₂ that is emitted into the atmosphere, the higher the temperature gets and the less water there is available for agriculture.

Sharing plate

Roger I am a xenophobe and proud of it. Nothing to apologise for, as it’s a natural human trait of risk awareness. I believe many of the terrorist outrages in the UK in the past 25 years have been perpetrated by foreigners, and a few by the offspring of foreigners.
Sam He talked a lot about banning Muslims. I grew up in a very white, Christian, Republican area of Colorado and I heard a lot of fear-based rhetoric. I had absolutely never met a Muslim person until I moved to Glasgow, and realised none of it was true. It seems like Roger’s operating from a place of fear.

For afters

Roger I think Nigel Farage accepting a £5m donation was OK, but failing to declare it is troubling. There was nothing to lose by declaring it.
Sam In the US there used to be a limit on how much a person could donate to a political campaign, and now there is absolutely no limit. I just feel that’s wrong. I don’t think one person should be able to have that much sway and that much buying power over an election. And that principle is the basis of my aversion to that, apart from the fact that it broke the rules.

Takeaways

Roger I think she’s a thoroughly charming, intelligent person. And she’s an immigrant, but I think it’s human to look for sameness before differences first, so the discussion was very amicable. I liked the fact that we could agree on so much, especially green stuff – apart from North Sea oil.
Sam The majority of Reform voters I’ve met are not particularly sophisticated or educated people, and I guess it’s bad of me to stereotype them like that, because he was an accountant and refined and well-spoken. We arranged to keep in contact.

Additional reporting: Kitty Drake

Roger and Sam ate at the Bull & Last, London NW5.

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