{"id":85484,"date":"2026-07-18T11:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T11:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/85484\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T11:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T11:39:13","slug":"piddington-votes-for-referendum-to-secede-from-united-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/85484\/","title":{"rendered":"Piddington votes for referendum to secede from United Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

On July 4, the Oxfordshire village of Piddington, population 370<\/a>, voted 175-7 to hold a referendum<\/a> on seceding from the United Kingdom<\/a>. The Labour Party government in London<\/a> plans on housing at least 1,250 single male \u201casylum-seekers\u201d in a disused military<\/a> camp at nearby Bicester.<\/p>\n

It sounds like a remake of the 1949 comedy Passport to Pimlico. In the movie, the delayed detonation of a World War II bomb exposes documents confirming that Pimlico, an inner-city London neighborhood near the Houses of Parliament, belongs to the dukes of Burgundy. The residents declare independence from British law<\/a>, particularly postwar rationing and taxes. The state besieges them and forces their surrender. How we laughed.<\/p>\n

No one is laughing now in the self-declared Principality of Piddington. Nor in the other four rural locations that Labour has earmarked for housing more than 5,000 \u201casylum-seekers.\u201d The party argues that stashing them in military camps at the taxpayer\u2019s expense will be cheaper than the existing policy, stashing them in hotels at the taxpayer\u2019s expense. The real aim is to place them out of the London media<\/a>\u2019s sight and mind. The migrants will be free to come and go while their appeals are processed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in shock and awe when the news was announced,\u201d said<\/a> Tim McNally, who, as chairman of Piddington village council, is the closest to a prince that the principality has got. The Piddingtonians, he said, felt powerless. The idea of the Principality of Piddington was inspired by The Mouse That Roared, a 1959 English comedy in which the tiny European duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the United States, gets the bomb, and forces the empire to favorable trade terms. Perhaps they\u2019ve been watching that one in Tehran.<\/p>\n

\"London,The main entrance to Paddington Train Station in London. (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to put Piddington on map and show people who we are,\u201d McNally said. \u201cPeople might think \u2018You\u2019re privileged,\u2019 but we\u2019ve worked damn hard.\u201d Piddingtonians never wanted to fight the British state, he explained, but it is forcing them into a war of survival. \u201cThey\u2019ve made their choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choices, choices. Piddington is, or was, in the Launton and Otmoor ward of Cherwell District Council. Since the 2024 local elections, the pro-migrant Liberal Democrats have ruled the council with support from the even more pro-migrant Greens. In Launton and Otmoor, the Liberal Democrats\u2019 candidate won 42% of the vote. Piddington is getting what it voted for, good and hard. Call him Tim McNIMBY.<\/p>\n

Nationally, Piddington is part of the Bicester and Woodstock constituency. In 2024, Calum Miller, a Liberal Democrat, won it with 38.7% of the vote. In August 2025, Miller joined local academics, faith leaders, and politicians in signing a pro-migrant appeal organized by the local charity Asylum Welcome<\/a>. The appeal falsely claimed that there is \u201cno credible evidence that asylum-seekers commit more crimes than the U.K.-born population,\u201d endorsed their right under international conventions to claim sanctuary from the war-torn dictatorship that is France, and denounced Nigel Farage for using them as \u201ca political football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the boot is on the other foot. Miller fears for the \u201csocial cohesion\u201d of almost entirely white Piddington. Hari Reed of Asylum Welcome warns<\/a> of \u201cfriction and community tension.\u201d Lesley McLean, the Liberal Democrat leader of Cherwell council, worries about a lack of \u201csupport, infrastructure and safeguards.\u201d They\u2019re right. When I reported from the migrant camp at the ex-airbase at Weatherfield, Essex, last year, residents complained of migrants leering at little girls in the village playground and peering through their kitchen windows. Property values in their postcard-perfect village had collapsed. A woman who lived by the base said she wouldn\u2019t let her daughter out alone to walk the dog.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question we are looking for the answer to,\u201d Miller complained to the BBC<\/a>, \u201cis why the government thinks it is possible to put 1,250 asylum-seekers into a community when the nearest village numbers 370?\u201d<\/p>\n

ALL\u2019S FAIR IN LAWFARE<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s perfectly possible, Calum. If you don\u2019t send them back, you\u2019ve got to put them somewhere. You support the soft-headed, soft-bordered policies that draw fraudulent and illegal immigrants to England<\/a>. You support the soft landing of infinite welfare when they arrive. Your party opposes deporting them, even when they\u2019re convicted of rape and murder. You just thought someone less nice would have to bear the consequences, and that only a racist would complain, as you now complain, that \u201cI\u2019ve literally no idea how the government thinks that can be absorbed into the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

And thus it was that the Piddingtonians who voted Liberal Democrat huddled over their pints at the Spread Eagle pub and muttered, \u201cEnoch was right.\u201d Thus it was that McNulty rejected the legitimacy of the British state, and Miller flipped from \u201cNo human is illegal\u201d to \u201cNot my problem.\u201d This is happening all over Britain, all over Europe, and all over the U.S., too. Someone should make a movie about it. But it won\u2019t be a comedy.<\/p>\n

Dominic Green (@drdominicgreen<\/a>) is a Washington Examiner columnist and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On July 4, the Oxfordshire village of Piddington, population 370, voted 175-7 to hold a referendum on seceding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[37387,172,284,31,37388,5,6,1374],"class_list":["post-85484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-asylum-and-refugees","tag-great-britain","tag-immigration","tag-labour-party","tag-magazine-columnists","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-welfare"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116940791221088468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}