Tiny village votes for 'independence' from UK amid asylum seeker row(www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
21 pointsby Danhale936 hours ago9 comments
  • schnitzelstoat4 hours ago
    > Piddington — home to roughly 350 residents

    > the Government announced plans to house 1,256 male asylum seekers in a nearby former military base.

    It seems a bad idea to put them all in one place where they will outnumber the local residents almost 4-to-1

    • pjc504 hours ago
      Previous approaches of distributing them across low-rent hotels and bnb accommodation have recently suffered arson attacks. This isn't the first time a disused military base has been used for this kind of purpose, and ultimately they have to go somewhere; wherever the government puts them is going to object.

      I'm not even 100% clear whether they're allowed off the site!

      The asylum system leaves people in an extremely unpleasant limbo for a long time while it makes decisions, based purely on the false belief that they're uniquely likely to be criminals.

      • philipallstar4 hours ago
        > A spokesman for the Home Office said: "The Government is closing every asylum hotel, saving taxpayers over £1 billion on asylum support since the election.

        This is why the hotels and bnbs were a bad idea.

        • pjc504 hours ago
          .. and replacing them with what, exactly?
          • philipallstar4 hours ago
            With nothing. Why does the UK have giant numbers of asylum seekers, and why wasn't any of the EU countries they travelled through to get there good enough? It's the hardest to reach country in Western Europe.

            EDIT: other than RoI.

            • rapsey4 hours ago
              Because the UK wants them. They can stop the boats at any time. They can stop feeding and housing them at any time. They come because the UK government and NGOs provide them with a comfortable life.
              • spwa417 minutes ago
                I think you mean "Because the UK wants them, only 2% or so of illegal immigrants arrive by boats".

                Boris Johnson did Brexit "to stop the immigrants" ... and opened the floodgates. The very opposite of what his campaign promised. The very opposite of WHY the British public wanted Brexit.

              • pjc504 hours ago
                It's the minimum requirement under ECHR. The government does actually have to comply with its legal obligations, this isn't America. They can't choose to just ignore them.

                This is why the problem hasn't been fixed. You can't say "just do X" when X isn't legal. Do you really think nobody's thought of this? That the government actually likes being in this position of the past decade or so?

                • hn_throw20254 hours ago
                  The ECHR says you must give prisoners the vote. Successive UK governments chose to ignore that part.

                  So don’t be so sure about “can’t” versus “won’t”.

                • philipallstar4 hours ago
                  Yes indeed, that is the oft-cited fatal flaw of remaining in the ECHR.

                  But that aside: why come to the UK?

                • rapsey4 hours ago
                  The ECHR is actually very loose with their definitions and gives the governments much freedom.

                  The UK chooses to interpret and enforce them as they do. Other european countries are within ECHR limits and deal with it entirely differently.

                  The UK elites no longer have the EU to blame for their policies, so they speak about ECHR. On the continent people barely know ECHR exists.

            • jalapenoj4 hours ago
              [dead]
      • cdot24 hours ago
        These are not Ukranian war refugees. They can be sent back to their home countries
        • pjc504 hours ago
          Can they? Have you personally reviewed all 1,200 cases?
          • zulux3 hours ago
            Real refugees take their families.
            • Timon32 hours ago
              Of course. When a family lives in a dangerous region and has too few resources to afford everyone's escape, no human would ever choose to save a loved one while staying behind themselves.

              And if they do, it must be virtue signaling or something like that, right?

    • tobylane3 hours ago
      They're already outnumbered by prisoners, which has not turned out to be a bad idea.

      https://hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repor...

  • delichon5 hours ago
    > A tiny village has voted overwhelmingly to become an independent state in a symbolic "referendum".

    And the mice voted to bell the cat.

    • downrightmike24 minutes ago
      Belling cats is actually really useful
  • tobylane5 hours ago
    > The Domesday Book records that by 1086 Judith, Countess of Huntingdon, a niece of William I of England held the manor [of Piddington].

    It's been going on for some time now.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piddington%2C_Oxfordshire

  • 4 hours ago
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  • drfuchs5 hours ago
    See the 1949 Ealing Studio film “Passport to Pimlico” for a take on how it’s going to work out.
  • accountrequired4 hours ago
    garrison the barracks with asylum seekers!?
    • pjc504 hours ago
      Disused barracks; shortage of other places; hotel accommodation has recently been subject to racially motivated arson attacks.
  • rapsey5 hours ago
    Much like the residents of Martha's Vinyard, I am sure all have been very progressive, until it was time to have migrants in their back yards.
    • mcphage3 hours ago
      > until it was time to have migrants in their back yards

      How did the migrants get to Martha's Vineyard?

    • hagbard_c4 hours ago
      This was voted down but it is to the point, NIMBYism is more the rule than the exception when it comes to this subject.
      • pjc504 hours ago
        This is more likely going to be a situation where they were always xenophobic.

        There's a rather uncomfortable interview with a local resident (of many years) who is Australian with a Jamaican husband, saying "well great now I know all my neighbours hate foreigners".

        • philipallstar4 hours ago
          Thinking that not liking over 1000 men moving in next to a small village is purely "hatred of foreigners" is mind-blowingly race-brained.
        • happytoexplain3 hours ago
          This isn't a good example of xenophobia, assuming you are using the word for its colloquial implications (I.e. simple race-adjacent hatred, and not just the fear of a large group of new strangers of a culture or circumstance that is alien to your community).
        • hn_throw20254 hours ago
          …so xenophobic that they voted for both a Liberal Democrat MP and Mayor?
        • account424 hours ago
          It's not xenophobia to not want foreigners to outnumber you 4 to 1 in your hometown.
        • 3 hours ago
          undefined
    • alwaysmrno4 hours ago
      [flagged]
  • josefritzishere4 hours ago
    [dead]
  • readthenotes13 hours ago
    It's all fun and games until they're in your own backyard