Seeing the mainland Europeans queuing alongside the Nigerians and Indians at Heathrow is just the most glorious feeling. I tell you it’s triumph. Triumph. Triumph when we tell the commission where they can stick their regulations. Triumph when I see the Union Flag flying alone without any gauche starry blue anus at its side. Triumph when we peer across the channel and laugh heartily at France. Triumph when we make clear that being born on the adjacent land mass means nothing here. Triumph when we tell the European courts they have no jurisdiction on our land. Triumph when we break German financial scandals in our national press. Triumph when we remind Europe we were on the other side in WW2. Triumph when we freed Europe twice. Triumph. Triumph. Triumph. But it’s not just the the big things, see? It’s the way I can set up lawn chairs at my friends house near Dover and share a toast to equality while watching Syrians and North Africans risk life and limb clinging to articulated vehicles despite their already having been granted refugee status in France. It’s the way I hear Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese spoken all around my city despite the Brexit, all of them grateful to have paid work despite their relative youth. It’s seeing the wide eyes and bead of sweat running down the forehead of a German customs agent when he opens my passport and gets confused about what rules apply to Brits now. It’s telling an Italian “oi, get to the back of the queue” in the supermarket. It’s the way a French waiter hangs his head when I refuse the wine and ask for a pint of bitter instead, in English knowing full well he understands me. The way an Aussie blushes and leans in the bar and says “good one, cunt” to let me know how he really feels about Brexit, or the scowl that meets my smirk when I tip an Scottish waiter in English currency covered with Queen’s face, knowing he’ll accept it whereas the existance of Scottish currency just confuses everyone else. The way small mobs of European school children come to the south coast of England for language classes follow me from a distance to see what a free man looks like, or how heads timidly rise and women gather when my accent stops the music in the clubs of Amsterdam. Triumph. Every bit of it, triumph. That’s what it means to be British.