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Passport to Piddington: The Oxford village about to hold an independence referendum
Jul 27, 2026
A village in Oxfordshire is threatening to declare independence from the UK over plans to house over 1,000 asylum seekers nearby. Residents of Piddington are angry about a lack of consultation over the single male adults being housed at a military base in Bicester, which could be open as soon as Christmas. The village, which has 370 residents, has voted to hold a referendum after the Home Office announced the plans for the 1250 asylum seekers. Held on July 4 to coincide with the 250th anniversary of American independence, 96% of the village said they wanted a referendum. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #ukpolitics #uknews #village #oxford #referendum #asylum #refugees #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
Welcome to Piddington. No shop, no post office, no pub. Population 350. Soon to be 1600. Why
0:09
Because the government plans to house asylum seekers here at a former military storage base
0:15
right on the edge of this little leafy Lib Dem village. The migrants, all adult males
0:21
all undocumented, can come and go from the site as they please. The government says it is
0:26
addressing community concerns, but residents have huge safety fears. It will completely change our way of life
0:34
As I said, we're in a position now where my mother-in-law and father-in-law
0:39
live just down the road there, so my children can walk down to see our daughter's grave
0:44
That might not be the option, that we could send them down the road with the safety. The field over there opposite us, I let our kids go and play golf in there
0:52
and play cricket together and we can just watch over them. That just wouldn't be an option. So the safety aspect of not knowing who these people are
1:00
it would change everybody's way of life in the village. People probably need to see this place to understand how outnumbered we would be
1:07
And that's the real worry. Four to one is a massive, massive difference on our life to what it is now
1:13
Protests haven't put a stop to the proposals. A legal challenge can't be started yet
1:19
So locals are trying something new and different. a referendum to, get this, become independent from the UK
1:28
And it's being led by Tim McNally, chairman of the Parish Council
1:32
To have 1,250 people brought into an environment where there's 350 people
1:38
I mean, that's like a, it's adding like 32 million people into London, as an example, overnight
1:44
I mean, that's a, it's a huge, huge proportionate impact upon us
1:50
And we just don't know how we're going to manage forward the security of our village
1:57
And the only way I personally to believe that that can be done is by either seeking international
2:03
help international support international recognition And I have to tell you I never realised just how quick I have been able to get this tiny little plucky village of Piddington
2:19
in the news, on the front pages of international press. Piddington is now on the map of the world
2:28
And two weeks ago, it was nowhere. We as a group, we as a family, we as a village are thoroughly disappointed with what's going on
2:36
And we're looking at means by means, ways of which of getting to the political jugular of this problem, the issue
2:42
Not by protest, not by expending resources on police forces, having to monitor and police people's behaviour on the streets with noisy rhetoric
2:52
No, we're going right to the root cause of our problems. The people who represent us in Westminster need to work for us
3:00
We pay for them. They need to do the job. And I want to see them starting to work for their job
3:05
I'm fed up with having to chase people to get things done through the councils and county councils
3:10
It's very frustrating that the money we collected offers, not what we spend, the money that's collected offers through enforcement
3:17
it's collected offers, we have to pay it, is not well spent. And that is one of the reasons why I've taken that thought now to move away from just being polite and asking and seeking clarification
3:29
We're actually going straight for that political jugular and saying, we've had enough
3:34
We're in a corner. We want a referendum on becoming independent. Tim has compared the plight of Piddington to that of the American revolutionaries in 1776
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He's even suggested claiming refugee status and seceding to become the 51st US state
3:53
I'm actually going to be pushing this referendum as a means, not just for the village of Piddington
3:58
but for the rest of this country there is something broken severely broken in our political structure
4:04
and it has to be addressed and I don't know where to start but I can tell you now I'm not going to
4:09
finish until I done it I genuinely believe that somebody or the right person or perhaps the wrong person will come out and actually see the site rather than just put some plans together I think somebody will come to our village they will come and see the surrounding area because this isn just about our village
4:23
this is about surrounding villages, this is about Bicester, and they will see that this is
4:28
not just the wrong place for us, but the wrong place for these asylum seekers
4:33
You know, we need to just stop saying this is about us, think about the other people, this is the wrong place for 1,250 men to be living. There is nothing here, there is quite
4:41
literally nothing here and when I said to you a second ago if we had to take my children somewhere
4:45
to go and play we'd have to drive somewhere to go and do that because there was nothing around us
4:49
not even a pub when I went into our village hall meeting the third of July with the idea of bringing
4:54
the referendum on I thought myself my job is to basically bring people together give them some
5:01
hope make them feel empowered help them to see the route we can take to basically get back at
5:09
these people who are dictating to us how we're to live. And this is not what we bought. When we
5:16
moved into our areas of homes here, we've self-invested, we've worked hard, we've got our
5:21
properties, we've done everything we need to do to get things right. We choose, we choose to pay
5:26
more to have better. That's a choice. Don't have to do it. If you want to pay less and live somewhere
5:32
else, have a lower standard, that's your choice. But people who are motivated to work damn hard
5:36
and do what they can to turn their homes into good places and make the place safe for families
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That's a choice. And now this action that's come, which was quite unprecedented, unexpected
5:51
without any consultation, not an ounce of communication, has meant that really that
5:56
when people felt so dejected and very upset, to say the least, to come out of that village
6:04
Hall meeting on the 3rd of July with a spring in their step, with a drive forward, with
6:09
an opportunity to see a way to actually address this issue with looking at having a referendum
6:14
on the 4th of July meant that they felt the purpose. They could start to understand that
6:21
maybe we got a way we can get back to the political jugular of this issue rather than just screaming and shouting and making people hear noise that gone here today and gone tomorrow Candidly Benji I don
6:32
have to look far to see the consequence of housing 1,250 men in a site that is not a prison
6:44
The news unfortunately has a number of reported incidents of inappropriate assaults
6:51
how and has, you know, if I look and say, right, the government, have you actually done a psychological
6:57
survey and thought about how this ought to be managed? Do you understand how the group of men
7:05
work and think? And all you need is 1% of people who aren't great. And you've got yourself a fair
7:12
number of problems. So I'm not saying all these guys are a problem. But unfortunately, you're going
7:19
to create that problem because when you isolate them, and at the moment the anticipated, and
7:24
use the word anticipated turnover, is 90 days between asylum sought and asylum given or
7:32
rejected. Right now, I think it's between 8 and 15 months to achieve that. So if someone
7:39
is isolated from the hotels and brought in here, and they're put away behind a fence
7:45
with limited access to doing things, I think the behaviour, the psychological behaviour
7:52
upon that person and the damage that's going to be caused upon that person is almost impossible to calculate
8:00
So we've all been around young men. I've been a young man myself
8:05
We've all done crazy, interesting things. And that's the nature of the DNA, unfortunately
8:12
But it's very important to understand that the government have never done this before, as big as this. And the contractor who's going to be assigned the task
8:20
of maintaining that site to a standard of security and acceptance, I will be holding to the very
8:28
highest scrutiny. And I will make them vicariously liable for any errors they make
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