Village's symbolic Brexit vote over asylum housing

Residents of Piddington, a small Oxfordshire village near Bicester, staged a symbolic referendum on secession from the UK to protest a Home Office plan to house up to 1,256 male asylum seekers at the nearby former MoD Bicester base. Of 312 ballots cast by the village's roughly 350 residents, 285 backed 'leaving,' prompting parish council vice chair Susannah Parden to declare 'we are Piddington, the village that roars.' Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC the government understood the disruption such plans cause locally but said it needed to keep processing an inherited asylum backlog while housing people seeking safety, pointing to a summer drop in small-boat crossings.

The site, dubbed 'Site A,' sits between Piddington and the villages of Upper and Lower Arncott and was the target of a similar, later-abandoned asylum proposal in 2005. Local Liberal Democrat MP Calum Miller said residents had been shut out of a decision with major consequences for their communities, while Oxfordshire County Council leader Tim Beader credited campaigners for spotlighting concerns about the site's suitability and the lack of local consultation. A wider public consultation on the housing plan runs until midnight on September 17.