Residents of an English village have voted to leave the UK in a symbolic referendum against plans to house more than 1,000 asylum seekers nearby.
The Guardian reports that the result of the poll in Piddington, Oxfordshire, was announced on Wednesday morning after 312 people voted on Tuesday. A total of 285 people were in favour of independence from the UK, while 26 voted against. One ballot was spoiled.
The poll was organized by campaigners for residents to demonstrate opposition to the government’s plans to house up to 1,256 male asylum seekers at a converted Ministry of Defence site in the town of Bicester.
Reacting to the news, a government minister said the burden of accommodating asylum seekers should not just fall on poorer communities, and she would “gently” tell residents of the village that the government was working to bring down the asylum backlog.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, told Sky News: “We are getting that backlog down. We’re speeding up the processing of claims, and in the meantime, we don’t think it’s acceptable for all of the burden of shouldering not just asylum accommodation, but also many other forms of temporary accommodation, to fall on poorer communities.”
The dispute over the plains in Bicester comes against a backdrop of tensions elsewhere over the location of accommodation for asylum seekers. After disturbances in Thetford, Norfolk, earlier this year, which far-right activists attempted to exploit, the local Labour MP there voiced his concerns that cheaper, working-class areas were being chosen as locations for housing asylum seekers in HMOs.
Tim Bearder, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said on Wednesday that the result in Piddington showed that campaigners had done “an incredible job” to highlight their concerns.
The result was announced on Wednesday morning by a “returning officer” in front of dozens of journalists, and residents gathered outside the village hall.
A parish councillor, Mike Nixon, said the proposed site has no pedestrian access areas, and that the nearest path was about a mile and a quarter away, down a busy unlit road.
The Home Office has previously said the government is closing asylum hotels in what is expected to save taxpayers over 1bn pounds on asylum support and that it is working fairly to house asylum seekers across the country.
