Second English Village Votes to Hold Independence Referendum Over Asylum Site

Residents of Barnham, a Suffolk village of about 600 people, have voted to hold their own referendum on leaving the United Kingdom, following the Oxfordshire village of Piddington in protesting a government plan to house asylum seekers at a military site next door.

At a residents-only meeting in the village hall on Saturday, October 24, villagers “voted decisively in favour of holding a referendum as a means to demonstrate the strength of feeling,” John Bauer, chairman of Barnham Parish Council, told the Eastern Daily Press. The Telegraph put the show of hands at 70 to 7. A working group was set to meet Monday to set a timeline. Organizers have not announced a date or question.

The site

The Home Office plans to house “single adult males between the ages of 18 and 65 who have applied for asylum” at MoD Barnham, a former military site about two miles south of Thetford, according to its factsheet, which says “the site would be used for a minimum of 10 years.”

West Suffolk Council says the Home Office withdrew its planning application on October 13 and filed a new one the next day for up to 931 people, down from 1,250. The council said on October 26 that it “continues to oppose modified plans for RAF Barnham.”

What the vote can do

The vote would not be legally binding. Bauer said the decision belongs to residents, not the parish council. “We will go with the decision of the village,” he said.

Piddington set the pattern. On September 15, it voted 285 to 26 to leave the United Kingdom over a similar site at MoD Bicester, with turnout near 92 percent, and later said it would ask Washington to take it in.

Two English villages have now turned to a vote of their own people after the government in London moved to put an asylum site on their doorstep without asking them.