Sunyi, 38, Wakefield

Occupation Novelist

Voting record A mix of Labour and Lib Dem, and Green in local elections

Amuse bouche She once climbed a big metal pole during a lightning storm because she was trying to impress a girl. “She was more amused than impressed”

Francis, 58, Huddersfield

Occupation Not working right now, but was a tram driver in Manchester

Voting record Conservative for the last two elections. If voting today, probably Reform, “but certainly not Labour”

Amuse bouche He once entered a competition to go on to the Manchester City football pitch and kick a ball from the goalline to the centre circle. He got the ball closest to the circle, and won a free trip to the 2006 World Cup final

For starters

Francis I’m a fairly confident person because of my background dealing with the public, but I think she was a bit nervous. She might have been expecting a woman because of my name!

Sunyi I have a lot of family who are very conservative and I talk to a lot of people with different backgrounds, so I wasn’t too nervous. He took the time to learn how to say my name properly – most people don’t!

Francis For starters, I had chicken goujons and dips. For the main I had pulled brisket and chips with a classic cheeseburger. It was really good. Also a shandy, because I was driving.

Sunyi I started with mozzarella bites with a cheese dip, and for the main had a burger with onion chutney and brie. It was nice, but there was a lot of it.

The big beef

Francis Sunyi told me she was illegal for a number of years and wasn’t given any help. But she didn’t come in on a boat, she came on a plane and applied. I think people have to come in the right way.

Sunyi You can only claim asylum by showing up. In my case, I came for university, and the Home Office lost my documents. So I was essentially illegal for four years. It derailed my life. People often say, “Well, that’s a special case”, but every case is special. I think people are good at being kind to someone who’s in front of them, but when it becomes abstract, people just become numbers.

Francis I’m not saying they’re all abusing the system, and I know we only ever hear about extremes in the press. But we agreed they need to be processed faster. We could do with an off-land processing site, like Rwanda. We need to stop the boats to give us breathing space to process the ones who are here.

Sunyi We agreed the cases need to be processed faster. He thinks the cost must be astronomical, but I doubt it’s that high. The amount of people coming in doesn’t seem to me, percentage-wise, a huge number.

Sharing plate

Francis I don’t understand why we’re still tied to the European convention on human rights (ECHR). We voted for Brexit, so therefore we should be out of anything to do with Europe.

Sunyi I understand where he’s coming from, but Britain is safer tied to Europe. When the Home Office lost my documents, I was married and my children were born here, so under the ECHR they had the right to stay and I couldn’t be kicked out. Without the ECHR, my lawyer said I’d be expected to leave, reapply and come back in.

For afters

Francis I’m not against net zero. I just don’t think it’s attainable. Even if we go electric, something’s got to power it all, and nuclear is only clean energy until you’ve got waste that has to be managed for 500 years.

Sunyi Just because we don’t have a solution yet, that doesn’t mean there won’t ever be one. He calls himself a climate-change denier in that he doesn’t think humans caused it. I think that’s immaterial; it’s here, it’s doing damage. And he did agree we should be doing more to mitigate the changes in climate we’re seeing.

Takeaways

Francis I was really hardline about immigration, but listening to the stories about her struggles has softened me a little bit. Not everybody is coming here to milk the system.

Sunyi When we discussed Brexit, he said public opinion is changing because many of the people who support it are dying out, and young people want different things. I feel like we represented that generational gap. But it’s helpful to keep talking to people who think differently.

Additional reporting: Kitty Drake

Sunyi and Francis ate at Harvey’s Bar/Kitchen in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire.

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