This is why I've been saying from day one that an Y Combinator focus on UK was the wrong move, because I expected the authoritarian mentality to only increase there over the next few years. The focus should've been on Germany, which at least has a strong Constitution (UK has none) and judges tend to be pro-privacy (although I imagine some data-mining/advertising startups would hate that).
Perhaps even more importantly, it's the people that care deeply about privacy there, too, and would protest obvious authoritarian moves by the government, while in the UK they seem to care almost as little about it as the Americans do.
Yes the German Government has been caught doing some nefarious stuff but if you compare the totality of what the UK government has been doing against what the German government has been doing, I'll take the German government every single time.
I say that as a UK citizen, also this is one of the areas where the EU has actually been really useful and I have a feeling we might leave in the referendum.
Germany has a strong constitution, yes, and an even stronger constitutional court... but: Take a look at poland and see how fast things can change.
It is frightening how fast a government can eviscerate the very foundations of democracy. This is even more appaling when you look at the fastest growing political power in Germany: The rightists from the AFD. I have no doubt that, what is happening right now in poland can happen in germany too, given enough time.
Perhaps even more importantly, it's the people that care deeply about privacy there, too, and would protest obvious authoritarian moves by the government, while in the UK they seem to care almost as little about it as the Americans do.