Villagers vote on independence over asylum plans

Voters in a small village headed to the polls for an independence vote over government plans to house asylum seekers at a nearby former Ministry of Defence (MoD) site.

The residents of Piddington, in Oxfordshire, voted over Home Office proposals to house up to 1,256 male asylum seekers at MoD Bicester .

The symbolic referendum on whether to leave the UK has been organised by the local parish council, with polling taking place between 07:00 and 19:00 BST.

Ahead of the vote, council chair Tim McNally said the government "does not want to engage with villagers concerns".

"They actually have played every possible trick in the book to avoid engagement," he said.

"If we've got to do something, it has to be proportionate, and that is not proportionate - that is us having to assimilate into them, not them assimilating into us."

A spokesperson for the prime minister told the BBC that the government was "working to fairly house asylum seekers across the country".

They said the government was "engaging with local authorities to reduce the impact on communities and we've saved taxpayers more than £1bn on asylum support costs since the election".