A tiny English village has voted to leave the United Kingdom as a symbolic protest against government plans to house up to 1,200 asylum seekers on a nearby military base.

Others said the campaign had a darker side and stirred up fear of newcomers. Some backers of the Piddington referendum compared their fight against the asylum accommodation to the 1940 Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany.

Villager Herbert Owen, 76, said after voting on Tuesday that the independence referendum “isn’t just about Piddington,” adding: “It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for. Today is the Battle of Britain.”

Comparing unauthorized immigration to an invasion has become increasingly common among politicians including Nigel Farage of Reform UK, and far-right groups that have been active in organizing and attending anti-immigrant protests.

What a bunch of assholes. From earlier in the article:

Residents of Piddington, which has a population of about 350…

That makes sense. Small town people need to have no say over issues pertaining to classes of people who are “different” from themselves. They’re too insulated and lack exposure to those who aren’t like them to properly recognize that they’re human beings in all the ways that they’d recognize if they knew someone from said class.

Brief story: decades ago, while I was on excellent drugs at a rave, my homophobia (thanks, Mom!) instantly disappeared when I realized the hilarious gay guy, in a group of us smoking cigarettes, was no different from me. “He just wants to take his drugs and have a good time on Saturday night,” I realized. He was no different from me!

Small town people need drugs and a good time with people unlike themselves.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    6 days ago

    Villager Herbert Owen, 76, said after voting on Tuesday that the independence referendum “isn’t just about Piddington,” adding: “It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for. Today is the Battle of Britain.”

    Herbert, Britain took hundreds of thousands of refugees when Nazi Germany invaded all of Europe. Many of those refugees fought for the Allies during the Battle of Britain when UK was left standing alone. You shame your grandparents and parents who fought during the war and tarnishing the name of the battle that fought for everything that is right.

    No wonder the Scots and Welsh are right to push for independence. I would not want to be associated with England-- an old man yelling at clouds.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    I will never feel bad for UK having to deal with “migrant crisis” after terrorizing the world for centuries

  • Ann Archy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    6 days ago

    Great, invade them and make them a vassal state to the UK with an 80% tax rate and forced serfdom. Should be done before lunch.

  • HM King Charles III DG FD@feddit.ukEnglish
    6·
    6 days ago

    was no different from me. “He just wants to take his drugs and have a good time on Saturday night”’ realized. He was no different from me!

    How can you be sure that these illegal immigrants are no different than you? For example, are you sure they have the same respect for women as you? I met a Pakistani fella once (wasn’t an illegal immigrant, but was an international student). He was boasting about how he had two marriages lined up. I think from there it was quite well established that different cultures have different levels of acceptability for behaviour.

    • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      How can you be sure that these illegal immigrants are no different than you?

      This is a very genuine concern. These migrants might know how to make edible food, for one. They might even brush their teeth.

    • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      Poligamy does not in any way imply disrespect for women. Or are mixed polycules composed exclusively of people who hate all genders?

      • boonhet@lemmy.zipEnglish
        4·
        6 days ago

        It’s disrespectful for women if men are allowed multiple wives while women are allowed one husband. Women in this case are usually also expected to be subservient to the men.

        This is very different from polygamy with equal rights imo.

  • AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zipEnglish
    5·
    7 days ago

    I am in agreeance with the comments basically telling those people that they would need to basically build up their “country” but definitely under a time constraint before being kicked out of the country.

    Hell, I was thinking similar things like that for certain parts of my country. Could easily apply to both. Simple things like them having to draft their own laws, create their own currency and then when that is created hand over basically all the foreign money back, government from the part of the country that didn’t secede still keeps control over the military bases and other government things of importance still in the new country. Things like other have said about disconnecting from nationwide utilities and having to have their own passports.

    I bet in both situations they wouldn’t even last more than a few years before collapsing inder their own ineptitude.

    • quack@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      7 days ago

      Years? They’d be reliant on foreign aid from the UK within weeks.

  • myyass@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    I get that this is ridiculous, but I have to ask how a town of 350 will accommodate 1200 more? I don’t know about small towns in UK but is there enough housing? If more is built, is there a proper infrastructure? As in when I lived in a small town in US, roughly 600, everyone had well water and septic tanks; there was no city like plumbing.

    I bring this question up because where I live now, the city keeps building giant apartments and car washes; yet sewage is being dumped in the water. There is a “drought” so plenty of water restrictions. And despite the heatwave this has never been an issue 15 years ago. They okayed all of these buildings, but the entire infrastructure is completely outdated, like don’t be surprised if you’re showering with sewage or reclaimed water and the lights flicker often sigh. A lot of people that have lived here their whole lives aren’t happy about this and there is no possible way this will be fixed even in my lifetime. But hey they just keep increasing bills and taxes.

    • qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      Oh, cool. I don’t often see an unabashed racist in Lemmy comments. Nice to see one who isn’t pussyfooting around, so I know I can cleanly block you.

      • HM King Charles III DG FD@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        I didn’t say anything racist on here, never have and (hopefully) never will. And if I do, I’m sorry.

        Edit: read the modlog, I wasn’t calling for violence against anyone. The joke was that real patriots would be willing to bear what they are claiming their countrymen are going through in solidarity. Kinda parodying right wing claims and the blitz spirit or signing up for the war 80 years ago, or I guess during COVID. “They” was referring to the villagers of piddington.

    • deWafelMan@lemmus.orgEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      Serious question, if the boys that fought fascism knew the future is where their grandchildren wouldn’t be able to afford a house, would stop having children on masse, and wouldn’t be able to get hired. Do you think they’d still have fought? It made their sacrifice worth it?

      At least they have some foreign food. On the downside, there’s huge grooming gangs that the police doesn’t dare do anything about because they might be accused of racism.

      • Naich@piefed.worldEnglish
        44·
        8 days ago

        They would be horrified that there are bell ends like you cropping up again in their own country. Seriously.

        • deWafelMan@lemmus.orgEnglish
          2·
          6 days ago

          Let’s hear from a primary source: https://youtu.be/c2LTcqnFXY0

          I’m not British, I’m Belgian. And when i remember my grandfather, he’d be horrified by the current society.

          Frankly the only ant-immigrant parties left are the far fight fascists, and I understand you associate me with them. But that’s not at all representative of. I want the political landscape to be like Denmark.

          Respect for people, freedom, laws, the press…, still hard on illegal immigration. I really hate that the only people standing against unlimited immigration are the pro-Russian mega corrupt far-right.

          • fartographer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            6 days ago

            Hey, while you seem cool with making bad choices on the Internet today, let me help you make just one fewer faux pas:
            In your YouTube link, you see that string that begins with ?is=? That’s a referral identifier so that Google can track who watched a video based on whose referral. The fact that this code can be internally associated with your Gmail account means that a third party has the potential to relate your Lemmy account to your Gmail account. While you’re not full-on doxxing yourself, you’re still inviting a potential invasion of your privacy.

            So, swap your YouTube link with this cleaned link https://youtu.be/c2LTcqnFXY0, and good luck with the xenophobia.

          • quack@lemmy.zipEnglish
            5·
            7 days ago

            I’m not British, I’m Belgian

            Of course you’re not, hardly any of the terminally online fuckwits obsessed with our politics are.

          • Naich@piefed.worldEnglish
            30·
            8 days ago

            Maybe ask yourself WHY it’s only the far right parties that are anti-immigrant and blaming all society’s ills on immigrants? Have a little think about that, and about what happened in the lead up to WW2. See if you can spot any similarities between those people who’s policies you support and the people your grandfather and my father fought against.

            • HM King Charles III DG FD@feddit.ukEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              Illegal immigration is an issue but it’s nowhere near the cause of society’s ills. Just thought it was worth putting that out there.

              If anything, it’s just a symptom.

          • myrmidex@belgae.socialEnglish
            7·
            8 days ago

            Respect for people, freedom, laws, the press…,

            Have you seen what’s been happening across the pond?

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zipEnglish
        18·
        8 days ago

        The reason houses are not affordable has nothing to do with fighting fascism, so it’s an absurd question.

        there’s huge grooming gangs that the police doesn’t dare do anything about because they might be accused of racism

        That’s a lame excuse the police use to cover up for their gross incompetence. And the similar police inaction on predominantly white grroming gangs can’t be credibly attributed to fears of accusations of racism.

      • Nautalax@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        8 days ago

        Serious question, if the boys that fought fascism knew the future is where their grandchildren wouldn’t be able to afford a house, would stop having children on masse, and wouldn’t be able to get hired. Do you think they’d still have fought? It made their sacrifice worth it?

        That generation themselves took charge of the new councils that in many cases would then veto further housing development to put upward pressure on the value of the homes they had secured, starting to pull up the ladder after many new homes had been freshly built for them following the destruction of the war. Their direct children who inherited the housing are still profiting quite handsomely with similar incentives, although it’s terrible for the great grandchildren. So the bad part is basically working as they themselves intervened to achieve, and regardless of that now reducing homeownership rates those rates still remain higher than those of when that generation was growing up and the homes are much nicer in quality than the slums of the time which were destroyed.

        People stopped having children en masse because new technology allowed for family planning and for people to do what seemed important to them in life rather than suddenly winding up as parents and being forced to lock in.

        The unemployment rate of 4.9% is much lower than what that war-winning generation had experienced in the interwar period.

        None of this situation seems like it would be helped by becoming the slaves of a self-proclaimed master race who themselves were under the unrestrained despotism of a rabid band of bloodthirsty lunatics.

  • BuyEU@lemmy.mlEnglish
    54·
    8 days ago

    I say, give them independence. Cut them off from the grid, water, sewage. Add border checks requiring visas if they want to enter the rest of the country. Treat them how you would treat any other country, with the influence of 300 people. See how long they last.

    As a nice gesture, let them have another referendum to see if they want to rejoin.

    • phutatorius@lemmy.zipEnglish
      15·
      8 days ago

      Yeah, it’s really a vote for free-riding. So bill them for everything they consume, and mark it up a bit extra because they’re being cunts.

    • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zipEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      There’s an old Top Gear episode where Jeremy Clarkson makes fun of that name. How it’s like something you’d call someone who’s a bit of a wet blanket. “He’s a bit of a Piddington.”