Episode 268 - The United Kingdom is a dystopian shithole

Intro

The United Kingdom is debilitating. By every metric, the country is losing its economic prestige, its people are becoming poorer and infrastructure dilapidated.

And while the British people are rightfully angry at their political leadership responsible for the state of their country, few are aware of another, much deeper problem with their government. That the UK elites are transforming the nation into a totalitarian state. British politicians consistently ignore the needs of the people, and hyperfocus on giving themselves more authority and more power. They are submitting every person living in the UK to a total surveillance state far greater than any other democracy in the world, rivaling even the most authoritarian regimes like China or Russia.

A lot of fellow YouTube channels have covered the disastrous downfall of the UK economy. And I want to contribute to that pipeline of doom but with a spin of my own because I see a different kind of decline. A decline in personal liberty, civil rights and human dignity in favor of absolute centralization of political power within the UK’s establishment.

I noticed that anytime I make a video on government surveillance, especially about the UK, my video gets demonetized and/or shadowbanned. That’s why I need your help. Join my Patreon and help me reach 400 paid members to give me more freedom to make critical content like this. Censorship on social media makes it impossible for me to do my work without your help. Thank you.

Apple demand

This story begins with a secret order issued sometime in January 2025 when the UK government sent a request to Apple to build an open back door access to all encrypted content of any Apple user anywhere in the world. In that request, Apple must give the UK government the ability to bypass Advanced Data Protection feature, which allows Apple users to use end-to-end encryption for their iCloud backups.

The request was issued secretly in such a way, that Apple would be barred from publicly disclosing it any way. Apple wouldn’t be allowed to tell its customers that their Advanced Data Protection feature no longer offered full encryption of their data. And even if Apple appeals the secret order, they still have to comply with the request for the duration of the appeal process, even if the order got overturned.

With this secret order, the UK government will be allowed to read encrypted content of any Apple user – including citizens and residents of other countries anywhere in the world. It doesn’t matter if Apple is based in the UK or not. By law, any company with a market presence in the UK, can be forced by the government to hack their own users.

Because Apple has already rolled out Advanced Data Protection globally, any Apple user that enabled it would have their iCloud backups encrypted with keys only the user controls and Apple couldn’t access. So how could Apple comply with the UK government’s request? The only way Apple could subvert it, is if they issued an update to the operating system that would secretly turn off that feature without informing users about it. By this order, Apple would have to continuously lie to their users who enabled Advanced Data Protection, that the feature still offers full security when it no longer does. And because the UK wants this backdoor for any Apple user, not just those based in the UK, Apple will have to prepare such an update for all Apple users globally.

No precedence

If you immediately think back to the Apple vs the FBI cases in the United States and think it’s similar, it’s not. The scope and secrecy of the British order has no precedence in any democratic country.

For one thing, Apple was allowed to appeal FBI’s order to unlock a suspects phone without being forced to comply during the appeal process. Apple was allowed to publicly disclose the order and boy did they make a publicity stunt out of it. Tim Cook wouldn’t shut up about how Apple is a privacy company. Instead of helping the FBI, Apple made a commercial campaign out of it for years to come. And furthermore, the FBI’s request concerned only individual suspect’s phone under official investigation within the US borders. It did not extend to all Apple users globally.

Apple is making no comments about this whatsoever. They are not allowed to share any information about it and the only way we know is because anonymous sources talked to the press. I am not going to speculate on who those anonymous sources are. But the US government has officially confirmed the existence of UK’s request. UK officials are declining to confirm or deny.

Snoopers

The law this secret order is based on is called the Investigatory Powers Act. It was introduced in 2015, at the height of Snowden leaks that implicated the NSA and GCHQ of conducting mass surveillance on unprecedented scales. In the US, the leaks sparked a major outrage and debate as to whether NSA surveillance is constitutional or should be allowed. And US tech companies began deploying encryption in response to the revelations, that the NSA was scooping up their user data.

In the UK, the government doubled down on their surveillance programs. UK journalists were ordered to destroy all evidence handed to them by Snowden and the government prepared the new bill to legalize and vastly expand their surveillance powers.

The Investigatory Powers Act wasn’t just legalizing mass surveillance by British Intelligence. It expanded those powers to almost any government agency – not just law enforcement agencies but also civil departments. All local, state and military police forces are now allowed the same intelligence powers. The Department of Health, Ministry of Justice or the Food Standards Agency were among the most absurd government bodies beefed up with the new surveillance powers.

Those surveillance powers were also far beyond anything remotely acceptable in any other country, US included. Any of the listed government bodies have the authority to remotely hack any computer, network, phone, server or any other device. They can legally install keyloggers, monitor user activity or download any data from the user device. This hacking doesn’t have to be targeted – the government can identified any region where a crime could occur and conduct large scale hacking operation to sweep up everyone’s data. Any communication service provider has to give government agencies full logs and metadata for all of their users. A communication service provider includes everything from an ISP, through a telecom company, to a messaging app. And the data provided to the government includes everything about who you message with and your entire browser history. All government agencies under the Investigatory Powers Act can access this information in real time.

Propaganda

I honestly do not understand how the British public could have let this bill become a law in 2016. The relentless government propaganda definitely did its magic. The government spent all this time vilifying the Internet for giving new ground to terrorists and national security threats. And while it was the height of Snowden leaks, it was also during the height of attacks in Europe by ISIS, a group which UK’s foreign policy helped emerge.

Civil rights and privacy activists called the Investigatory Powers Act “one of the most extreme surveillance laws ever passed in a democracy”. That’s wrong. It’s not one of. It is the most extreme surveillance law in any democracy. UK’s competition is China and North Korea.

I don’t even know if it’s the government propaganda or a reflection of British culture. Because overwhelming number of people, majority in most cases, believe the government should have the right to conduct mass surveillance. 80% believe public CCTV surveillance should be allowed. 60% believe the British government should spy on UK residents without their knowledge. 50% believe the government should monitor any information exchanged over the Internet and any information about anyone living abroad.

When the Investigatory Powers Act passed in 2016, the UK was still part of the European Union. At that time, the European Court of Justice struck it down for violating human rights. Since then, the British people voted to leave the European Union, and with that the judicial oversight over UK’s surveillance was gone. The Snooper’s Charter was fully re-instituted.

UK will fall

The UK has traded liberty for safety but it will have neither. It might sound surprising, but big tech companies are not willing to become surveillance tools for world governments. Apple has said it will not comply with the secret order to build backdoors into their products. And I believe them. I think Apple would rather burn their whole market in the UK and suffer the losses than compromise the security of their devices. Google and Meta also said they will not build backdoors for the UK. And I also believe them. Not because they care about privacy of their users. All big tech companies are after all in the business of monetizing our data. But they realize that backdoor only for the good guys doesn’t exist. Which is something the US government learned the hard way after the Chinese government hacked US infrastructure exploiting their backdoor tools. The US government since issued recommendations for people to use end-to-end encryption and even named Signal as a recommended private messaging app. Theses recommendations were also endorsed by Canada, New Zealand and Australia. They were not endorsed by the United Kingdom.

So how will this resolve?

Apple has already said they will stop offering encrypted services in the UK. But that will not be enough, because the Investigatory Powers Act forces companies with any market in the UK to comply, even if they don’t have an office in the UK. So the only solution, will be for Apple, Meta and Google to leave the UK market in their entirety. To stop serving any and all products in the UK. All tech companies will start blocking UK IP addresses and phone numbers from registering for and using their services. If that happens, the UK will fall. It will induce massive loss of GDP and jobs as the entire industry would leave the country and never return. The British people will fall even deeper into misery, speedrunning into economic collapse. And UK will not be more secure even if all encrypted services are purged from the country because people will always be able to choose services that don’t comply with UK’s surveillance requests.

The government can’t backed down from its position because it has always argued that encryption is abetting child molesters and terrorists to evade mass surveillance. They’ve equated privacy advocates with PDF defenders. So for the UK there is no pretty way out of this. Unless the British people realize the faults of their thinking, that there is no freedom without acceptable levels risk.