All women in society are unsafe, minister says as Piddington locals raise fears

Bridget Phillipson has said “all of us as women in society are unsafe” after female villagers raised fears about living near proposed housing for more than 1,000 asylum seekers.

Plans to accommodate 1,256 males at a former military site near Piddington sparked anger and drove residents to vote to leave the UK in a symbolic independence “referendum” on Wednesday.

A group of 133 women living there sent an open letter to every female MP the following day, saying “as fellow women, you will understand the serious risks this will expose us to” and “we will not feel safe walking our streets. We are already living in fear”.

Asked if they were right about their safety concerns, women and equalities minister Ms Phillipson told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “Sadly, yes, women are right to be fearful in society more widely about the attitudes and the normalisation of attitudes towards women and violence against women that I’d hoped we’d made more progress on, and I hoped we put behind us.”

The minister continued: “The reality is, of course, most women who experience violence in our country experience it from a partner or a former partner and many women lose their lives to that violence, but that’s the end point.

“The starting point is some of the harmful and toxic and terrible attitudes that women are experiencing and are exposed to, and that’s why it has to be all of us pulling together to to take action.”

Bridget Phillipson is women and equalities minister (Jeff Overs/BBC/PA)

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She added: “Sadly all of us as women in society are unsafe, that is the culture that we have right now in our country where women on the streets are harassed, where women can’t even go to gigs without facing sexual assault or intimidation, and where young girls in our schools are exposed to harmful language – that’s what has to shift.

“Whilst yes we should look at individual cases – and I’m not for one second seeking to minimise the concerns that those women raise – this is part of a much bigger challenge that we all of us have to tackle together.”

“We have many people within our country that we are required to accommodate, we want to reduce that number, and we are reducing that number”, Ms Phillipson added.

She also told the programme: “We will look very carefully at any concerns anyone raises, of course women feeling safe in our country is a top priority for me.”

Aerial view of Piddington (Joe Giddens/PA)

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Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has said “the vast majority” of migrants coming to the UK will not be a threat.

He also rejected the suggestion that he is “on the same side” as Reform UK by backing Piddington’s objection to the facility.

Sir Ed told the BBC’s Sunday Morning with Laura Kuenssberg: “I think we’d be on the same side as the residents.”

The Lib Dem MP in Bicester and Woodstock, Calum Miller, “has been showing that you can make good decisions about where asylum seekers have to go, and bad decisions, and the proposal to locate lots of young men on that ex-MoD site is a very bad decision”, Sir Ed said.

The correct way to handle migration is to process asylum applications far faster, meaning “we could deport those who have no right to be here, and move people who have a right to be here to get on with their lives out of the hotels”, he said.