An English village of around 350 people announced overnight that a large majority of residents had voted to exit the United Kindgom in an "independence referendum" in protest at plans to house over 1,200 migrants in a nearby facility.
The village's parish council announced that with 312 ballots counted, 285 had voted to secede from Britain over plans to house asylum seekers in a nearby disused military site, in a symbolic vote with no recognised legal basis.
The leader of Oxfordshire county council Tim Bearder, speaking to the BBC, warned the planned centre "will be a lightning rod to the far right, who come here to protest" and "potentially attack" asylum seekers.
The centre-left Labour Party, in power since July 2024, has vowed to replace use of hotels as migrant accommodation, a policy it inherited from the previous Conservative government, with ex-military bases by 2029.
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How
Summarized version
The village's parish council announced with 312 ballots counted, 285 had voted to secede from Britain over plans to house asylum seekers in a nearby disused military site, in a symbolic vote with no recognised legal basis.
Headline check
Headline as published: Why this tiny English village voted to 'secede' from the UK
All two things this headline claims are in the report.
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The article, shortened and in plain language
An English village of around 350 people announced overnight that a large majority of residents had voted to exit the United Kindgom in an "independence referendum" in protest at plans to house over 1,200 migrants in a nearby facility.
Piddington in central England, 25 kilometres from the university city of Oxford, has grabbed headlines with its tongue-in-cheek breakaway vote.
The village's parish council announced that with 312 ballots counted, 285 had voted to secede from Britain over plans to house asylum seekers in a nearby disused military site, in a symbolic vote with no recognised legal basis.
The local parish council chair Tim McNally said that the village will now be known as the "principality of Piddington".
The leader of Oxfordshire county council Tim Bearder, speaking to the BBC, warned the planned centre "will be a lightning rod to the far right, who come here to protest" and "potentially attack" asylum seekers.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham promised to "look at the issues raised by the community and in the referendum" but said the "vast majority" of British people backed a government plan to stop housing asylum seekers in hotels and it was "fair" to locate holding centres around the country.
Some backers of the Piddington referendum compared their fight against the asylum accommodation to the 1940 Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany.
The centre-left Labour Party, in power since July 2024, has vowed to replace use of hotels as migrant accommodation, a policy it inherited from the previous Conservative government, with ex-military bases by 2029.
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