Residents of Piddington, a small village in Oxfordshire, have voted overwhelmingly in a symbolic referendum to "secede" from the UK, in protest at government plans to house more than 1,200 asylum seekers at a nearby former Ministry of Defence site near Bicester. The vote carries no legal weight and will not actually remove the village from the United Kingdom, but organisers say it is intended as a gesture to pressure Westminster over the scale of the proposed accommodation, which they say would be four times the size of their community.

Of 312 ballots counted, representing 92 per cent turnout, 285 residents voted "yes" and 26 voted "no", with one spoiled paper. Parish council chairman Tim McNally hailed the result as sending a message "to the region, the country and the world", framing the vote symbolically as a "Battle for Britain" held the day after the anniversary of the 1940 Battle of Britain. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy responded by arguing that the burden of asylum accommodation should not fall disproportionately on poorer communities, while Oxfordshire County Council leader Tim Bearder warned the site would be "a lightning rod to the far right" and a costly, unsuitable use of tens of millions of pounds.