Robert Crampton on being 'lumped' together as Europeans

Returning to the UK from abroad, journalist Robert Crampton was frustrated to find there was no separate queue for British nationals coming home, who instead are 'lumped in' with all other EU passport holders. "Why does it matter ? Because I was coming home. ... I also wanted to share the sensation of returning to home soil, even if the soil is the bland grey carpet of an endless Heathrow corridor, and I could not. ... A love of the familiar and the secure is a harmless emotion; benign, and yet powerful. When the State seeks to realign such an emotion, to redefine home, to reattach loyalty to some other entity, resentment ensues. A minority of Europeans may feel equally at home in Barcelona or Birmingham, Munich or Manchester, but the deracination of the international political and business class should not dictate allegiances to the rest of us."

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