Tiny English village holds 'independence' vote over asylum seeker housing

A small English village of just 350 people has found itself on the front line of a national debate on the housing of asylum seekers, holding an "independence referendum" on Tuesday to protest plans to house over 1,200 migrants in a nearby facility.

Piddington in central England, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the university city of Oxford, doesn't even have a shop but it has grabbed headlines with its tongue-in-cheek breakaway vote.

The vote, which is entirely symbolic with no real legal basis, is Piddington's response to plans to house asylum seekers in a nearby disused military site.

"It's all about how do we get our voice heard in a different way to the way others have gone about it," villager Ian Darby, 63, told AFP.

Darby stressed that the village was happy to take a share of migrants but felt that 1,200 was excessive.

Residents arriving at the village hall received "ballots" asking them to vote "Yes" or "No" to the statement: "I support Piddington seeking to secede from the United Kingdom and pursuing self-determination."

"I voted to leave the United Kingdom," said 76-year-old local resident Herbert Owen, who said it felt like the government didn't "care" about the bucolic village in the Oxfordshire countryside.

Around the UK, towns and villages have regularly staged protests against the housing of asylum seekers in hotels and other facilities.

The so-called referendum is a play on the British comedy film "Passport to Pimlico".

In the 1949 classic, a small group of Londoners discover treasure and declare independence making them exempt from post-war rationing and other bureaucratic restrictions.

"What we're doing is a very British thing -- we're voting," said chair of the local parish council Tim McNally.

"Because this is a really important topic... not just in this region, (but) across the whole of the United Kingdom. We're just ground zero," he said.

McNally said the community's fears were not about the majority of asylum seekers who may be housed at the base.

What worried people was a "small minority of individuals who will be a nuisance that we cannot predict or control", he said, adding that the sheer scale of the plans were "unimaginable".

"And we are going to have to change our way of life to facilitate what's coming."

Plans were afoot, he said, for CCTV and a security audit of the village.

According to a government factsheet, the proposed site would be used for a minimum of 10 years to house single adult male asylum seekers.

The "safety and security" of the migrants, staff at the base and the local community would be "of the utmost importance", it said.

But villagers in Piddington said the government proposals are impractical.

"We have a village hall, a 12th-century church and a playing field -- and that's it," said Darby, questioning how the migrants would spend their time.

"This is so disproportionate. It is a takeover of our village, it's four times the people of this village. They are going to want to get out and about (locally) and that raises serious issues," he said.

Women in the village said they feared for their safety.

In an open letter to parliament's 266 women MPs, 133 female villagers wrote that they were "facing a crisis".

"Life as we know it will be destroyed. We will not feel safe walking our streets. We are already living in fear," they said.

Seventeen-year-old student and part-time stablehand Dita Jackson said she found the proposals "worrying" and was taking self-defence classes.

"I've lived here, my whole life... I won't really feel safe enough to walk around anymore," she said.

"It's going to change it completely," added farmer Jennifer Owen, 76.

Immigration, in particular irregular migration, has become a major political issue in recent years, boosting support for hard-right parties in the UK.

Just this month, masked men dressed in black clashed with police near two southern coast ports over the arrival of undocumented migrants on small boats.

The Labour Party, in power since July 2024, is phasing out the use of hotels as migrant accommodation, a policy it inherited from the previous Conservative government.

It has vowed to completely end their use by the end of this parliament, due in 2029, turning instead to ex-military bases.

New Prime Minister Andy Burnham suggested last month it would be unfair if refugees and asylum-seekers were only to be housed in the "poorest communities".

The result of the village's symbolic vote is due to be announced Wednesday morning.

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