In the Oxfordshire village of Piddington, 285 of 350 residents cast ballots to symbolically secede from the United Kingdom, declaring themselves the 'Principality of Piddington' in protest against government plans to house over a thousand asylum seekers at a nearby disused military base. The vote carries no legal weight, yet its weight as a signal is considerable — a small community reaching for the language of nationhood because it feels unheard within its own nation. It is a parable as old as governance itself: when people believe consultation has been replaced by imposition, they invent new