Passport to Piddington
Village Street,, Piddington, Oxfordshire
If you asked me to describe a picture-perfect English village it would sound something like Piddington in Oxfordshire. The conurbation of 350 people has a church dating back to around 1300, a village hall, extensive playing fields and used to have a pub, though regrettably this has since closed. It featured in the Doomsday Book, compiled after the Norman Conquest, and is the resting place of the Dymock poet John Drinkwater.
All of which makes the events of the past few months all the more extraordinary. On July 4, a date chosen to coincide with American Independence Day, the village voted by 96 percent to hold a referendum on seceding from the United Kingdom. It was organised by members of the parish council. A full independence referendum is scheduled for September 15, which by a happy coincidence happens to be Battle of Britain Day. Should the vote succeed Parish Council Chair Tim McNally, a man who doesn’t object to the moniker of Piddington’s George Washington, told me he plans to formally ask for the village to be admitted into the United States.
The source of this fury is the Government’s plan to house 1,250 male asylum seekers at a former Ministry of Defence site on the edge of the village, bordering its playing fields. The Government is seeking to move asylum seekers out of hotels, some of which have become the target of protests, with a Home Office spokesperson commenting: “We are working with local authorities and others to fairly disperse asylum seekers across basic accommodation including ex-military sites.”
Piddington is something of a challenge for non-drivers. When I visited earlier this month, there was one bus each way per day from Oxford high street, and even the friendly driver initially missed the bus stop. What was clear is that this is a village ready to fight.
In an interview with TheArticle McNally said that in late June: “We were presented with a statement offered by the Home Office of this United Kingdom, requesting us to take 1,250 single males on a sign-in sign-out basis for an asylum site. Our village is only 268 adults and 46 children. We don’t have the infrastructure, the scalability, the proportionality to support such a demand upon our village…
“We just knew the consequence of such an activity would have a devastating impact on the quality of our lives and the lives of our children. There would have to be a paradigm shift in how we manage what we do.”
McNally said he got the idea of an independence referendum when he saw a sign on a bridge reading “Jeremy Clarkson for King”. This “brought up the idea to me of us having our own principality”.
He continued: “Then I sort of thought, well, if we could actually get ourselves our own village and become independent and perhaps get the support of the United States to become their 51st state…We’re going to use every means we can to get ourselves independent. We might need to seek international help. We know he’s in receipt of our letter and we’ve also done a smaller dossier, an expression of who Piddington is, to the American embassy.”
The referendum has the backing of fellow Piddington parish councillor Michael Nixon, who commented: “We felt we weren’t being listened to by our government, so we would hold a referendum to say: ‘If you’re not going to listen to us, what’s the point of being part of the UK? Perhaps we should join someone else.’”
Ian Darby, a Piddington resident of 16 years, told me he plans to vote for independence on September 15. “We’re looking at a population that’s going to be outsized by three and a half times and that’s going to have a massive impact on people that already live here.”
Earlier this month Prime Minister Burnham told GB News that “wealthier areas” — and it’s hard to imagine that wouldn’t include rural Oxfordshire — should take in more asylum seekers. He said: “We cannot have a situation where it’s only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers.”
Unsurprisingly, such remarks cut little ice in Piddington, with McNally responding: “It’s not about wealth, it’s about proportionality…If 1,250 men come into our village of 350 that’s a 350 percent increase in the burden on the infrastructure.”
The proposed asylum seeker site has been criticized by Calum Miller, the local Liberal Democrat MP, who said the Government was taking “secret decisions” without local input, according to The Sun. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/39811893/village-votes-to-leave-uk-over-migrant-housing-plans/
Curiously, though in August 2025 Miller was one of three Oxford Lib Dem MPs who signed an open letter by the campaign group Asylum Welcome expressing “solidarity with people seeking asylum” in Oxfordshire and praising asylum seekers’ “resilience, dignity, mutual solidarity and eagerness to contribute to British society.” Miller’s office was contacted for comment by email for this article but has yet to respond. https://www.asylum-welcome.org/call-for-unity/ https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc63PaUWa5nAcGiYfjqDiUKhtByOhhRCtJ0eJiz0r7njSWkFw/viewform
Britain’s asylum policy has long been a farce. An overinterpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights by activist judges means that rather than taking in the most needy, the UK must accept anyone from a significant swathe of the world who can make it to the country, legally or otherwise. Unsurprisingly this heavily benefits healthy young men and means more deserving groups, such as Afghan women living in conditions of near slavery, are tossed on the scrap heap.
On one subject at least, Burnham is right. According to a study by The Spectator the most deprived tenth of local authorities in Britain on average take 30 asylum seekers per 10,000 residents, compared to fewer than four for the least deprived. Thus asylum seekers have been concentrated in the areas least politically able to object. If Piddington is anything to go by, the Labour Government may find that, as it targets rural areas with strong communities, it has bitten off more than it can chew. https://spectator.com/article/where-do-asylum-seekers-live-in-britain/
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