Vice President JD Vance’s visit last week to a small community in Southern England has been met with fierce protests from locals, and while most of the opposition stems from the Trump administration’s policy positions, a number of locals are growing increasingly frustrated with Vance's accompanying security detail, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
“We’ve had a curtailment of our freedoms here, just by his mere presence, in terms of where we can walk and where we can be,” said Steve Akers, deputy mayor of Chipping Norton, just over three miles away from Vance’s vacation home in Dean, speaking with the Wall Street Journal.
“And the American Secret Service knocking on people’s doors and asking about their Facebook profiles.”
Vance and his family are staying at an 18th-century manor house in Dean, which he rents for nearly $11,000 a week. He’s characterized the visit as both a family vacation and a diplomatic visit, and is expected to return to the United States on Friday, marking the trip as the vice president’s longest since assuming office.
His ten-day visit, however, has already caused chaos in the small English community, as well as communities outside of Dean, sparking further outrage for longtime residents.
“Roads near the tiny hamlet of Dean, where the Vance family has been staying at an 18th-century manor, have been closed and only residents are allowed through,” wrote Roya Shahidi with the Wall Street Journal.
“Some in Dean have complained that local police or the U.S. Secret Service have knocked on their doors to verify their identity and even ask about their social-media profiles, according to local officials.”
A no-fly zone was also established over the Dean community and beyond, impacting the British television personality Jeremy Clarkson, former host of the popular British Broadcasting Corporation show “Top Gear,” who owns a farm near Dean, the subject of an ongoing reality show “Clarkson’s Farm,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
