I was an immigrant there and left the UK just before Brexit came into effect and never went back (even though I have friends over there) because I was very aware already back then of the Authoritarian shit already in place (for example, already a decade ago there was no right to have a lawyer present when detained and interrogated at an airport, and the crazy overboard anti-Terrorism legislation now being used was already on the books back then).

The tools now being used very overtly by Starmer have been in place for quite a while, alongside a lot of shit that in the old days one would only find in Authoritarian nations, used for surveillance of the civil society and suppression of free-speech and demonstrations.

That crap that has been added in the last couple of years is but a fraction of the insanely anti-democratic shit already in the books back then, since most of that shit was added in two big waves, one after 9/11 and another after the Snowden Revelations (when the government retroactivelly made legal all the unlawful civil society surveillance that had been doing) and in between and since slowly expanded in scope and layered with ever more oppressive shit, mainly targetting demonstrations and civil society groups.

That said, the Authoritarian mindset of the British elites long predates this latest wave: for example back in the 80s Ecological organisations were under surveillance and even being infiltrated by undercover police officers, and don’t get me started about Britain’ long running Press-Censorship system: D-Notices.

Except in the domain of armed police violence, Britain wasn’t better than the US, it was just much more subtle, which makes sense since at least England is very obcessed with managing impressions, especially the upper classes.