I was in the same situation back in 2002 as I lived in Romania, which was not in the EU, which was the requirement back then (it now is in the EU, and the UK is not, but that's a different story).
In case 20 year old info is useful... At the time the "home" status was decided case by case by each university. I wrote to each of them explaining my situation and the one I eventually attended (Edinburgh) accepted my explanation. However, I was born in the UK, a native speaker, and lived there until I was 12 and was abroad "temporarily" due to my parents work. Your situation sounds a lot less likely to be accepted, but you could at least try.
Universities get a bit of freedom for deciding on home fees.
It’s the SLC which are the heavily strict ones (that only
Applies to people who want to utilize the student loan though)
I am not sure if you can apply for student loans if you are not paying 'home' university fees.
What I mean is, if you get home fees (at university discretion) that doesn’t mean you can automatically get a loan from SLC which is a lot more strict.