Sorry, you were born in the wrong place

Dear EU citizen,
Thanks for your interest in the UK as your home and place of work.

We have reviewed your application and unfortunately it appears that you were born on the wrong bit of the earth.

You see, we (‘humanity’) have, over the years, divided up the various bits of mud, grass, forests and mountains and declared it to be ours. An awful lot of effort has gone into making sure that our bits of land remain our bits of land, and we’ve also put a lot of effort into trying to get more bits of land.

As it happens, us Brits (that’s what we call people who happen to have been born on this bit of the earth we decided to call “Britain” and declare ours) used to claim quite a lot of the earth as ours. We don’t have as much now, so we’re a bit protective about what’s left.

Rather foolishly your parents decided to give birth to you on a bit of land that we hadn’t claimed was ours. So you can’t come to our bit of land. A short holiday would be fine, but you’ll have to go back. You can’t stay.

If you’d been born on our bit of land you’d be one of us, do it be fine. But you weren’t, so it’s not.

Please stay on your own bit of land.

Yours,

Britain.