Europe · 16 September 2026 to 17 September 2026 · 4 headlines · BBC News, AP
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.
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