Yeah, a lot of this is just .. well, I hesitate to use the over used phrase "deep state", but a lot of it is the work of people in the security institutions who "advise" the government, rather than the changing cast of the thin democratic bit on the front. There's long been authoritarianism in response to the fear of terrorism, from the IRA onwards. Then there's things like the "spycops" scandal, which make you wonder whether certain protest groups are deliberately engaging in really unpopular stunts in order to facilitate a crackdown.

The British public are in an odd place on this. There's a lot of "folk libertarianism", but that mostly consists of not having ID cards, while at the same time supporting all sorts of crackdowns on protest as soon as it's mildly inconvenient.

And then there's immigration. As in the US, it's a magic bullet for discourse that allows any amount of authoritarianism (or headshots to soccer moms) as long as you promise it will be used against immigrants.