English village votes to leave the U.K. over migrant housing plan

Local residents pose with a "Principality of Piddington" sign in the village of Piddington, Oxfordshire, England, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, after they voted overwhelmingly to become an independent state in a symbolic "referendum". (Joe Giddens/PA via AP)

LONDON — A tiny English village has voted to leave the United Kingdom as a symbolic protest against government plans to house up to 1,200 asylum seekers on a nearby military base.

Residents of Piddington, which has a population of about 350, voted overwhelmingly for secession in the non-binding referendum. The results announced on Wednesday showed 285 votes in favor of breaking away, with 26 villagers voting against.

“We have given an absolute message, not just to the region, not just to the country, but to the world,” said the parish chairman, Tim McNally. He said the district will henceforth be known as “the Principality of Piddington.”

The attention-grabbing vote was called to oppose plans to turn the former Ministry of Defence Bicester base — which is about half a mile (0.8 kilometres) from the village — into housing for male migrants. The government says the site is “designed to be largely self‑sufficient to minimize any impact on the local community.”

Residents in the Oxfordshire village have raised fears about safety, crime and the effect on house prices in the affluent area, 50 miles (80 kilometres) northwest of London.

Supporters called the declaration of independence a victory for people power and local democracy. Some media coverage compared the gesture to the classic 1949 Ealing comedy film “Passport to Pimlico,” in which a London neighbourhood breaks away from Britain.

Others said the campaign had a darker side and stirred up fear of newcomers. Some backers of the Piddington referendum compared their fight against the asylum accommodation to the 1940 Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany.

Villager Herbert Owen, 76, said after voting on Tuesday that the independence referendum “isn’t just about Piddington,” adding: “It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for. Today is the Battle of Britain.”

Comparing unauthorized immigration to an invasion has become increasingly common among politicians including Nigel Farage of Reform UK, and far-right groups that have been active in organizing and attending anti-immigrant protests.

The U.K. has seen a wave of anti-immigrant demonstrations since riots erupted two years ago after a teenager killed three young girls during a dance class near Liverpool. The U.K.-born attacker had been wrongly identified on social media as a Muslim asylum seeker.

Protesters clashed with police last year outside hotels housing asylum seekers in London and several other cities.

In June, masked men in Northern Ireland set fire to several homes in Belfast they believed to house immigrants after a Sudanese man was arrested over a stabbing.

Earlier this month, masked demonstrators blocked the port of Dover, in southeast England, and tried to stop a boatload of migrants being taken ashore in Portsmouth on the country’s south coast.

The center-left Labour Party government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham says it is making progress in processing asylum claims more quickly, so that migrants spend less time in state-sponsored accommodation, and stopping people crossing the English Channel in inflatable dinghies.

More than 41,000 people made the hazardous journey in 2025, but the number so far this year is down by more than 40% from the same period last year.

The government has also pledged to move migrants from hotels and rooming houses — often in poorer neighbourhoods — into more suitable accommodation.

“I understand the strength of feeling,” Burnham said on Wednesday. “I will look at the issues being raised by the community and in the referendum, but we have to ensure that we have a fair plan” that spreads the burden of accommodating new arrivals across the country.

Refugee groups said military barracks aren’t the right place to house asylum seekers, but cautioned that migrants should not be made scapegoats.

“For people who have fled war and violence and come to the U.K. to be safe, being accommodated in such remote and unsettling environments only exacerbates their sense of insecurity,” said Jon Featonby, chief policy analyst at the Refugee Council.

“And as we’ve seen from other sites, they’ve undermined social cohesion.”

Jill Lawless, The Associated Press