ON paper, the two women sitting
in a pub garden in Surrey have
little in common. One is a Tory-
voting, keen Brexiteer who thinks
Boris Johnson is a “strong
leader”, and she hates it when
workers go on strike.
The other is Frances O’Grady, the
General Secretary of the Trades Union
Congress. Frances, 59, is a Labour-
supporting, Remain-voting socialist,
dedicated to making life better for
working people.
Dennie Smith, 57, is a small business
owner and entrepreneur who runs
Vintage62 hairdressers in South
Croydon, Greater London, along with
a dating site and an antiques business.
“If we’d had Boris Johnson in charge
three years ago we wouldn’t be in this
mess now,” Dennie says. She believes
the EU is “a form of dictatorship”.
Ahead of the TUC Congress next
week, we asked Frances and Dennie to
meet in person over a lunchtime drink,
for the Mirror’s Britain Talks project.
WORKING CLASS
Both women grew up in large
working class families, and were born
only two years apart. Frances was born
in Oxford, the daughter of a car factory
shop steward and a shop worker who
later worked for the NHS. Dennie was
born in Clapham, South London, and
was raised partly by her grandparents.
As the conversation flows between
kids, politics, relationships, business
and Brexit, they discover they share a
love of soul music. Both have grown-up
children they worry about. Both share
a passion for history and politics, which
Frances studied at Manchester Univer-
sity, and to which Dennie
devotes her spare time.
And both women share
similar feelings for former
Prime Minister David
Cameron. “He was so confi-
dent Brexit wasn’t going to
happen, and when it did, he
just ran off,” Dennie says.
Frances agrees. “As a nego-
tiator, you never go into
battle with no plan,” she says. Dennie
laughs. “When I was chairman of the
school PTA, if we ran any event we had
to have a Plan B for if it rained.”
Then Dennie tells Frances about her
heroes. “I’d have been a suffragette,”
she says. “So would I!” Frances agrees.
“They were practically terrorists,”
Dennie admits. “But that’s what
happens when a man won’t listen. I’ve
got one of the coins they used to
deface and write ‘Votes for Women’
on. I had it made into a necklace.”
She says Martin Luther King is her
biggest political hero. “He wasn’t about
power, he was about
rights of the people.
Imagine a person with that
vision today.”
Frances nods. “Too
many politicians now feel
like technicians,” she says.
“What do they really
believe?”
She adds
that her view on President
Trump is “unprintable”.
Dennie says: “I’d like to
do his hair.”
Finally, the chat turns
to Brexit, but by now it’s a
conversation between
friends.
“My husband recently
lost his job, but that was
already happening,”Dennie says. “It’s not
Brexit.”
Frances nods. “It’s like
during the recession, when
employers used it as an
excuse to lay people off,”
she says. “But we also
know a hard Brexit will
make it harder for us to
protect people’s jobs.”
Dennie says immigra-
tion was “not even in my
mind” when she voted
Leave. “But there have been
consequences of the Brexit
vote,” Frances says. “Racist
attacks have gone up.”
Dennie says the main
reason she voted out was
sovereignty. “We have our
laws and then the European
Court just overturns them,”
she says. “And the EU got too
big. The original countries
were all bringing something
to the table. Now it’s 27countries. It’s bad enough
trying to set up a meeting
with nine staff.”
Frances listens carefully.
“I voted Remain because I
thought that was best for
workers’ rights and peace in
Northern Ireland,” she says.
“The TUC played a big
role in the Good Friday
Agreement.
“I don’t think the EU is
perfect. We need reform. I’m
not saying it was an easy decision. But,
in the end, my working life has been
about standing up for working people.
And all of us, as unions, thought the
best outcome would be Remain. For
workers and for trade.
“The EU was a peace project. It
started after World War Two in coal,
iron and steel. If countries were
trading, they were less likely to fight
each other. Unions fought for the
social dimension. We thought, if there
could be standards for fridges andcars, there could be standards for
workers’ rights.”
Dennie looks up. “No divorce is
smooth,” she says. “Don’t you think
we can make new agreements all over
the world?”
Frances looks doubtful. “If we come
out without a deal, we will be over a
barrel,” she says. “The government will
think, we’ve got to get some agree-
ments quickly, and we’ll no longer have
the bargaining power of being part of
a bloc. Even the hardest
Brexiteer admits it’s
going to be a bumpy ride.
“The biggest threat is
to the NHS. Big Pharma
in the US see the NHS as
a big market with too
strong bargaining power.”
So would they vote for
a second referendum?
“If Brexit were a race at the Olym-
pics, you couldn’t say, I don’t like that
outcome,” Dennie says. “I was amazed
we’d won. But there was a clear win.”
“I want a general election,” Frances
says. “And then any deal that’s done I
want put back to the people.”SYMPATHY
Frances says she believes a lot of the
Brexit vote was people saying, “Now
you listen”.
“I have a lot of sympathy with that,”
she says. “But whether we are In or Out
there is no guarantee their issues will
be dealt with. Whether we’ve got a
good local school, people looked after
if they are sick or disabled, decent jobs
that mean people can plan their lives- I’m not sure any of this business is
going to change those things.”
Dennie shakes her head. “I don’t
know if I’ll vote Tory next time,” she
says. “I’ve said I’ll never vote again.”
As the women prepare to go their
separate ways – back to the next
appointment at the hair salon and
back to meetings at TUC head-
quarters – both agree it has been
good to talk.
Dennie tells Frances about her
dating site, Old Style Dating, and
even offers to fix her up.
“I respect Leavers,” Frances says.
“We have Leavers in the trade union
movement. But it’s also true that in my
world, you can’t always be seen to
accept someone else has a point.”
Dennie nods. “I hate the way people
are attacking each other,” she says.
“Normally, you feel afraid to open your
mouth. I respect Remainers. It’s OK to
have different views.”
■ mirror.co.uk/britaintalks
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REAL BRITAIN
TRUCE The pair said it was good to talk
‘‘We have our
laws but then
the European
Court over-
turns themHERO Iconic activist
Martin Luther-KingUNPRINTABLE VIEW
Frances on Trump‘I hate the way people
are all attacking each
other. It’s ok to have
different views’
CANDID
Brexiteer
Dennie and
TUC boss
Frances‘‘My working
life has been
all about
standing up
for peoplePicture DAVID DYSONb
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