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.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      12 hours ago

      Immigration is a complex social and economic problem.

      And the problem is people dont’ want to acknowledge complexity because it’s hard. They’d rather vastly over simplify things, and call it bad or good. Without ever going into the policy details and their consequences.

      And if you suggest that immigration is complex leftists call you racists, and rightoids think you want to exterminate the white race.

      But it’s fine, it’s easier to grandstand on the internet and feel smug than actually discuss or examine the complexities of immigration, especially because it’s someone else’s problem.

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
          14·
          10 hours ago

          the problem is how many/who immigration to allow in, and where they have to live, how much assistance/benefits will they get, etc.

          then how to integrate them into your society, language learning etc.

          and that’s legal immigration. and that already, has backlash, because why are these people getting so many social services that aren’t even available to your own citizens?

          illegal immigration is a whole other thing. because by definition, that’s not-selective in either population, location, or anything else.

          politically the problem the far left things open borders and infinite resources should exist, and the far right things immigration shoudl be disallowed entirely or only be for the rich, and no social services shoudl be given to immigrant.

          • blartcap_@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            3·
            10 hours ago

            So your entire assertion above is assuming that everyone else doesn’t have to deal with the problem of immigration, so they can throw peanuts from afar without dealing with that problem?

            I’m pretty sure everyone here lives somewhere with immigrants. So that’s a strange thing to accuse everyone else of.

            and that already, has backlash, because why are these people getting so many social services that aren’t even available to your own citizens?

            There are special interest funds and help for all kinds of groups, private and public. Citizens have more social services that aren’t available to all immigrants by default. There has never been any data to support this assertion that immigrants receive the benefit of more social funds than citizens.

    • HM King Charles III DG FD@feddit.ukEnglish
      33·
      16 hours ago

      It’s particularly illegal immigrants. Essentially once someone disregards the immigration system, then their likelihood of disregarding other laws is dramatically increased.

      Legal immigrants also hate this happening as well, as they work hard to get a visa and then their reputation gets annihilated by freeloaders and possibly criminals or nuisances escaping repercussions abroad.