An Oxfordshire village is holding a symbolic independence referendum over government plans to accommodate more than 1,000 asylum seekers at a former military site, highlighting the growing tensions between national migration policy and local opposition.
Residents of Piddington will vote on Tuesday on whether the village should declare itself independent from the UK, in an unofficial referendum prompted by plans to move 1,256 male asylum seekers into the disused military base nearby.
Piddington had a population of 358 at the 2021 census, meaning the proposed accommodation would house more than three times the number of people recorded as living in the village.
The plans have generated anger and anxiety among residents, while ministers have defended the former military site as a more appropriate alternative to continuing to accommodate asylum seekers in hotels.
Jonathan Reynolds, a senior government minister, acknowledged the controversy but said the government had limited alternatives while attempting to reduce pressure on the asylum system.
“Where in the UK would want more of this? We’ve got to share this throughout the entire nation,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“I think a former military site is a far more suitable location” than a hotel in a town or city centre, Reynolds said.
While the asylum seekers would not be detained, he added: “you can more easily see who’s coming and going from a site like that”.
Reynolds blamed the previous Conservative government for allowing asylum applications to accumulate ahead of the planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
“None of this is pleasant. None of this is easy,” he said.
“It comes from the fact that the system was completely out of control.
“None of this was being dealt with because there was this imaginary proposition that somehow people were going to be sent to Rwanda.”
Local opposition has been building for months. On July 4, marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, 96 per cent of Piddington voters backed holding the unofficial referendum.
The government intends to use the Urgent Crown Development Process, which would allow Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to bypass the local planning authority.
On Monday, about 20 women gathered in the village to meet Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, shadow minister for women and equalities Joy Morrissey, and Reform UK MPs Sarah Pochin and Suella Braverman.
Morrissey, Pochin and Braverman were among four MPs to respond to an open letter signed by 133 female residents and sent to all 266 female MPs.
The women said they faced a “crisis”, warning that “our safety, security and freedoms will be under threat”.
Heidi Meakin, 61, a recently widowed resident who helped organise the letter, said she had moved to Piddington because of its quiet character but feared that would change if the plans went ahead.
“I wouldn’t leave my front door unlocked like I do. I would be reluctant to come down here and walk my dog,” she told the Press Association.
“This is where all of us come and walk our dogs, meet people, and the kids come down here and play football, and that will change, that will completely change.
“Change the dynamics of the village, change the dynamics of how we feel, and even our daily routine.”
Gloria Brown, 69, who has lived in Piddington for 23 years, said she would stop litter-picking if the development went ahead, a community activity in which she takes “lots of pride”.
“All my friends in the village call me Madame Cholet,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t be able to do that any more.
“I do it on my own sometimes.”
She added: “How ever am I going to get my mental health back to scale? Because it’s going to make me feel imprisoned in my own village.
“I’ve felt very emotional about it just lately, and it’s just not correct, and it’s totally unfair.”
The dispute illustrates the political difficulty of redistributing asylum accommodation away from hotels while ensuring that local communities feel they have a meaningful say over developments.
For Piddington, the scale of the proposed site has turned an otherwise obscure planning decision into a wider confrontation over migration, local democracy and the balance between national government powers and the interests of small communities.
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