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Maxine, 62, Barnsley

Occupation Retail sales assistant

Voting record Used to vote for Ukip, and has since always chosen “patriotic parties” such as the English Democrats, the English Constitution party, and once voted Tory because she wanted Brexit

Amuse bouche She volunteers as a presenter at a hospital radio station that is now online

Fred, 44, Sheffield

Occupation Builder and home educator for his six-year-old

Voting record A mix of Labour and Green

Amuse bouche He was home-educated until he was 13 and then went to farming school. He is now a vegan – who can drive a tractor

For starters

Fred I do work with an anti-fascist group, so I’ve had a lot of conversations with anti-immigration people in my community. I expected it to be a lot less high-tension than those ones.

Maxine I think we got on well. We’re both polite, and it was pleasant enough – but we had very different opinions.

Fred The restaurant was a Brazilian grill and I’m vegan, so I ordered a vegan Wellington. The grilled pineapple with cinnamon was very nice, and we both had coconut ice‑cream for dessert.

Maxine They came round with these towers of meat – beef, pork, lamb, chicken – so I got to try a bit of everything. I think I ate more of the grilled pineapple than anything else.

The big beef

Fred Last September, people from a different part of Sheffield put up St George’s flags and union flags on our high street. It reminded me of swastikas lining the streets in Nazi Germany. We organised a group to take them down, and people who’d been drinking in the local pub came out and used racist and homophobic language.

Maxine I think taking the flags down was an act of aggression. I don’t see why anybody would feel uncomfortable with a piece of cloth.

Fred When I said I was taking them down because people felt threatened, they said: “I hope they do feel threatened, maybe then they’ll stop coming over here.” So they very much wanted them to be intimidating.

Sharing plate

Maxine I think Reform are playing the present political situation to get in power, and when they’re in they will help the rich, crush the NHS, and the poor will become poorer. I also believe free speech is free speech. You can’t change people’s thoughts, and if you shut people down it’s more dangerous.

Fred I think we need limits on free speech to protect marginalised communities. I’ve got a black friend who’s had someone give him a Nazi salute within the last year. Fascists have been emboldened and are putting stuff they think it’s acceptable to express – such as really explicit racism – in public spaces. I think that does put people in danger.

For afters

Fred I don’t think we should withdraw from the European convention on human rights – it’s useful having an international body to appeal to, because it stops one government doing things to suit themselves. I think the people who advocate withdrawing tend to be doing so because they want to reduce workers’ rights.

Maxine I think there’s been too much abuse of human rights. If somebody comes here claiming asylum and it gets turned down, they’ll claim human rights just to get to stay, and that gives them more time to plot ways to stay after that fails. By the time they’ve dragged it out, we’ve spent thousands on somebody who might not even be genuine. I think we should make our own bill of rights that can’t be abused in that way.

Takeaways

Fred My takeaway is that everyone has their unique mix of views and politics – and they don’t necessarily align. A lot of far-right supporters I’ve spoken to, like Maxine, are anti‑immigration but also very far left economically of the leadership of those parties, which are led by very wealthy people.

Maxine Fred pointed out during the discussion that the reason people come on small boats is that there’s no legal way for them to apply for asylum from abroad. So now I think there should be legal routes for genuine refugees to get here. If we did that, it might make it a lot easier for us to stop the abusers of the system.

• Maxine and Fred ate at Estábulo in Barnsley, South Yorkshire

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