{"id":813462,"date":"2026-10-25T13:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T13:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813462\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T13:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T13:38:08","slug":"barnham-villagers-vote-for-referendum-over-migrant-housing-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813462\/","title":{"rendered":"Barnham villagers vote for referendum over migrant housing plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents of a village where about 930 migrants could be housed at a former RAF base have voted to hold a referendum on leaving the UK.<\/p>\n

RAF Barnham in Suffolk was one of three Ministry of Defence (MoD) sites<\/a> named in June as potential locations for asylum housing, as the government vowed to move away from hotel-based accommodation.<\/p>\n

Opposition to the proposals has led to protests outside the base, near Thetford in Norfolk, with villagers now set to vote on whether to symbolically secede from the country.<\/p>\n

The Home Office said: “We recognise the strength of feeling in local communities and are listening carefully to the concerns being raised.”<\/p>\n

On Friday, the government said the number of migrants that could be housed at the base had been reduced from 1,250 to about 930. <\/p>\n

Villagers in Piddington, Oxfordshire, voted in September<\/a> to become independent from the UK in a symbolic referendum held in protest at plans to house more than 1,000 migrants at a former military base at MoD Bicester. <\/p>\n

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a>, only seven of the 80 people who attended Saturday’s meeting at Barnham’s village hall voted against the plans for a referendum. <\/p>\n

A working group will meet on Monday to set out the timeline for the vote.<\/p>\n

Barnham Parish Council chairman John Bauer, who supported the move, said: “Residents voted decisively in favour of holding a referendum as a means to demonstrate the strength of feeling in the village at the government’s failure to consult anyone about a matter which will change the nature of the village.<\/p>\n

“This democratic action stands in dramatic contrast to the high-handed approach the government is taking.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of a village where about 930 migrants could be housed at a former RAF base have voted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-813462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}