Chair of parish which voted to leave UK said government has failed to consider impact of migrant camp

The chairman of Piddington Parish Council, Tim McNally, has said the government has failed to consider the impact on villagers of housing male migrants in a small village.

Speaking on GB News he said: “This is something we didn’t plan. We didn’t know it was going to come. As chair of the Parish [council], all you’re really doing is fixing signs, complaining about roads, organising, helping people out with challenges.

“And then, out of the blue, this thing comes, and the whole village felt quite entrapped; not knowing what to do, not knowing how to respond, feeling quite helpless and feeling quite mentally challenged by it.

“It’s a massive consequence upon the village in terms of what’s coming. And having worked with the village and listening to their challenges and their upsets and their absolute depression I had to think of a way. I had to think of a way to get them on board, to get them to step up, and to move forward with positive mental attitude and make a difference.

“I’m the sort of person basically that you give me an impossible task, and I’ll get it done. That’s my nature. That’s what I do. I was going down the M4 and over the gantry over the M4 I saw this plucky little sign, and it said ‘Jeremy Clarkson for King.’

“And I thought to myself, ‘Wow, what that makes perfect sense to me. Why don’t we build our own principality?’

“And then I thought about the things like the Mouse that Roared, the movie in 1959 with Peter Sellers and Benny Hill, and then Passport to Pimlico mentality. I want us to be heard. I want us to be considered.

“We have had no consideration. No one has come forward to us and made any attempt to try and communicate and consider our needs or wants or any other aspects.

“I’ve got many issues that have been presented from the government that I want examined. I really want to undress the rhetoric, the words they’re using, which are very concerning.

“They’re using words like, ‘Well, people are being security vetted’. To me, security vetting suggests a standard of some kind or other. And yet, just 15 days prior I heard the Home Office being interviewed directly about how they can’t even age verify the people, so how can they be security vetting?

“This is such an important part for the mentality and mental health of these people that I represent. We need to have a hook that we can actually dig into and confront this as it comes.

“We’ve got to make major concessions in our lifestyles in our village. We’ve got families now, basically saying, ‘Well, how can we sell up? How can we move out? We can’t. We’re trapped because we’re in property exposure there. Who would want to live in this village?’

“And this is why, if I can bring some solution to this process, whether we become a tax haven environment, whether we put together some compulsory purchase on properties, whatever it might be, people need to be given an option, a way out.

“They cannot be trapped, and the fact that these people can come in and out-we’ve only got 70 policemen in Bicester. Never mind Piddington; Piddington has no policemen. There’s no police station anywhere. How is all that going to be managed, the risk?

“And the other question I have is: Why is it exclusively men? What is it about this that does not feel right to have women and children in the same camp? Why should it be exclusively men?”