1) Using your logic, why would a Turk share the same heritage and identity as someone from Vienna?
2) Surely a Sicilian has as much (if not more) in common with a Libyan as he does with a Swede.
3) David Hannam, you claim to share a common heritage with the Portuguese.
I'm sure you do (just as they share it with others, no man lives in a continental vacuum), but when was the last time you read Camoens?

I do not share a common heritage with the portuguese, lol. You are reffering here to geographical placement only.

When you consider Britain has seen invasions from the Normans, Vikings, Germans etc, these are all of northern european stock. This is the difference.

However, there is a huge difference between assimiliating peoples of a very similar stock, culture, etc, than assimiliating peoples of an entirely different continent, where the peoples are different, culture is hugely different and the history is completely different. There is no common bond to tie to two.

Put another more crude way, if you put 1000 swedes in the centre of Hull tomorrow, you do not have a problem, and probably would not even notice them, or ever know they were here...you put a thousand Eastern European Asylum-seekers here in Hull, everybody knows.