If having forebears who contributed to the construction and maintenance of this country and its infrastructure lends you a proprietary share in it, then I, and some 25 - 35 million other Brits are owed 1000 years' backpay. Where do I submit my claim?
It's in the nature of a country that building and maintaining its structure is necessarily a mercenary process. Just because several thousand British engineers and electricians were employed in Iraq in 1970s and 1980s to install the country's national grid, doesn't mean they did or should receive Iraqi nationality.
Come to think of it, if they were really want to double down this "we helped build it, so its ours too" argument, they can take all the post 1950s architecture with them when they leave. It won't be missed. Nor will they.