Voters in a small village are heading to the polls for an independence vote over government plans to house asylum seekers at a nearby former Ministry of Defence (MoD) site. The residents of Piddington, in Oxfordshire, are voting over Home Office proposals to house up to 1,256 male asylum seekers at MoD Bicester. The symbolic referendum on whether to leave the UK has been organised by the local parish council, with polling taking place between 07:00 and .
Ahead of the vote, council chair Tim McNally said the government "does not want to engage with villagers concerns". "They actually have played every possible trick in the book to avoid engagement," he said. "If we've got to do something, it has to be proportionate, and that is not proportionate - that is us having to assimilate into them, not them assimilating into us." A spokesperson for the prime minister told the BBC that the government was "working to fairly house asylum seekers across the country".
They said the government was "engaging with local authorities to reduce the impact on communities and we've saved taxpayers more than £1bn on asylum support costs since the election". "The Home Office has submitted an application to obtain planning permission to use the Bicester site for asylum accommodation, but it remains the case that no final decision has been taken on the site's future use," the spokesperson added. But speaking outside Piddington village hall on Tuesday, one villager said when it came to holding the vote: "We wouldn't do this lightly." "I think when you see a village like this feeling that they need to hold a referendum it sends a really powerful message to the government that we're being ignored and disenfranchised," he told the BBC.
Tuesday's ballot paper asked residents to respond either yes or no to the statement: "I support Piddington seeking to secede from the United Kingdom and pursuing self-determination." The outcome of the referendum, which holds no legal weight and bares a resemblance to the classic Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico, is expected to be announced on Wednesday morning. Having just cast his vote, Herbert Owen said the referendum was not "just about Piddington". "It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for – today is the Battle of Britain," he said.
His wife, Jennifer Owen, said: "We can't actually leave the United Kingdom, but it just brings things out in the open more for the country as a whole." She added that the proposals would "change our lives forever" if it were to go ahead. The Home Office first announced its plans for MoD Bicester in June. "We are working to fairly house asylum seekers across the country, moving asylum seekers into alternative accommodation," a spokesperson said.
This, the spokesperson said, included former military sites that were "designed to be self-contained to reduce impact on the local community". But that is not how many people in Piddington see the proposals, with 96% of voters supporting a referendum on independence from the UK in a vote held on 4 July - a date synonymous with another declaration of independence from the British state. Last week, ahead of Tuesday's vote, 133 women from the village wrote to every female Member of Parliament saying "life as we know it will be destroyed" if the plans succeed.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
