By GB News (Politics) | Created at 2026-09-21 16:51:37 | Updated at 2026-09-21 17:40:38
1 hour ago
Sir Ed Davey was forced to agree with Nigel Farage today over the vexed issue of Piddington and admitted “I really understand why they’re scared” as women in the village fear for their safety.
The Home Office proposal to house 1,200 male migrants on a former military base near the small Oxfordshire village resulted in the village voting in favour of leaving the UK last week in an 'independence referendum'.
In a sit-down interview with GB News Chief Political Correspondent Katherine Forster, the Liberal Democrat leader made it clear he is opposed to the plan, and had to concede that “on this particular isolated case, yes”, he agreed with Reform Leader Nigel Farage.
An unusual position, given Sir Ed Davey spends much of his time slating the Reform leader and said Mr Farage would “damage our country and damage our democracy” if he got the keys to Number 10. He has pledged at conference in Brighton to stop that happening via “an orange wall” of Liberal Democrat seats.
Despite his agreement with his political foe on Piddington, Mr Davey stressed "on most things, I'm completely the polar opposite to Mr. Farage".
But on Piddington, the pair agree. Mr Davey said: “It's not right for the local community. And the facility at Mod Bicester, which they're proposing is just inappropriate.”
And Mr Davey hailed the work of the local Liberal Democrat MP Callum Miller, saying he “has opposed this from the get go. And rather than just making divisive comments like Mr. Farage tends to do, he's actually worked with the people in Piddington. He's actually stood up to the Home Office and said, this is a bad deal for the taxpayer... I've talked to Callum a lot about this and other members of our team. Look, there are other places we should use.”
And he is sympathetic to the plight of villagers: 130 Piddington women have written to female MPs saying they will fear for their safety if the camp is used to house migrants.
Katherine Forster pointed out: “There is a risk there, isn't there? The Home Office felt it necessary to put out a booklet, effectively telling these men, arriving from different cultures, not to rape women. We had the horrendous case of Rhiannon White stabbed to death 23 times with a screwdriver by an asylum seeker, a woman on Brighton Beach, literally just outside of this hotel, raped by three asylum seekers. Women are right to be scared in Piddington, are they not?”
Ed Davey said he agrees with Nigel Farage on Piddington
GB NEWS / PA
Sir Ed Davey agreed: “I really understand why they're scared. I really understand why, actually women who are the victims of violence across the country are worried about not cracking down on violence against women and girls.”
But agreement that Piddington should not be subjected to 1200 male migrants being dumped nearby, is where the agreement with Nigel Farage ends.
Mr Davey tore into to Farage’s plan to stop the boats by using Royal Navy vessels to turn the dinghies back to France: "Nigel Farage says use the Royal Navy, and massive battleships? Completely inappropriate for this task. The only person who supports Nigel Farage on that is Vladimir Putin; wanting to use the British Royal Navy, not for defending our country, but for doing something they're not even designed to do. How crazy is that idea?”
And he slammed the Tories record on illegal migration: “We should get the number of asylum applications down. The last government failed. In fact, it was Robert Jenrick who's now in reform, who opened more asylum hotels than anyone else, and built up the asylum backlog.”
Katherine Forster sat down with Ed Davey at the Liberal Democrats party conference
GB NEWS
He’s not impressed with Labour either: “The Labour government has been far too slow in getting it down.”
In contrast Mr Davey maintains: “ We put forward very well thought through policies. Looking at what we did in Covid by adopting that Nightingale approach, Nightingale processing centres to process those applications really fast and then you wouldn't need these types of centres.”
“I think we're the only party with a serious policy to stop the boats. We've said we should join the EU pact that came out this June that deals with migration, asylum, and if we did, we get our power back to to basically send everybody back who comes on the small boats.”
Meanwhile, as politicians argue over how to stop the crossings, public fury at failure to do so only grows.
