And almost all those cameras are privately owned and operated, and not integrated into any kind of centralised surveillance apparatus. More typically, they're in place to deter graffiti or to keep drunks from pissing on the walls outside pubs. Police can and do request footage when investigating crimes, but if a camera owner's retention policy means the footage has been deleted, that's the end of the discussion. And such footage is useful if some arsehole has just jammed a broken beer glass into someone else's face.

The worse forms of authoritarian overreach are the increasingly pervasive number-plate recognition cameras that track the movements of every vehicle, and the inane attempts to regulate the internet and to ban peivate use of encryption.

As for "quiet, polite fascism," I've lived for extended periods in the US and the UK, and so far, despite the seemingly draconian laws, I've always found there to be more personal freedom in the UK. The police don't kill people very often, people tend to ignore the laws and the government can't be bothered to enforce the most intrusive of them, and there's far less social pressure towards brainless conformity and mindless obedience than there is in the States.

When the Snowden Revelations came out, it turned out the UK did as much or maybe even more civil society surveillance as the US, and unlike the US it doesn't even have constitutional limitations on surveillance of people on their own soil (in fact the UK doesn't even have a written Constitution).

In the US they actually walked back on some of the surveillance (because of said constitutional protections), in the UK they just passed a law that retroactively made the whole thing legal, got the editor of the newspaper who brought out the Snowden Revelations kicked, fired a bunch of D-Notices around (the UK's Press Censorship mechanism) out and nobody ever talked about it again.

As soon as the technology was good enough for that the UK created a Digital Stasi and it's only gotten worse since.

and unlike the US it doesn’t even have constitutional limitations on surveillance of people on their own soil
- I'd argue the US doesn't anymore either, or if it does, it's only on paper. Shit, rights in general in the US are to the degree where they only exist on paper anymore, and I can think of some fascists that would get rid of the Constitution altogether and implement absolute, unbreakable rule if they could... ~~Trump.......~~

a whole new country relying on the snowflake protocol.

That would put them in the company of China, Russia, and Iran. Getting unrestricted Internet to people in those countries is why I am among those who run a snowflake node on a dedicated VPS (the link also has a simple browser addon -- it's easy to support the network, everyone should)

Yes, these moves suck for UK youth. But, anti-censorship tools do exist, and volunteers like me want people who could benefit from them, to know about & use them.

any sane adult should never send a copy of their id to anything but the government, bank, insurance or employer.

100% agree, take my upvote

Holy Fuck 1984 was a warning,

Against them evil communists!... oh the irony...

I feel you, protests in my country are not as effective as french or spanish protests, and usually devolve into large picnics instead.

Because you can't protest in an empty stomach. On the other hand, now we're too full to protest. Let's go home, Benfica is playing today.

Well both books were written to describe what british authoritarianism would look like.

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler
How long before we have a leak of the PM masturbating to state violence? Ugh V for Vandetta was so sexual in such an intentionally uncomfortable way
:::