It's a long standing govt right in the UK.

Well, there's a differentiator right there. In the USA, government doesn't have rights; it only has enumerated powers.

Yeah, I know this is different than the US, but I keep seeing people complaining about it from a US civil rights standard. We should at least appreciate that under UK law there are different rights. For the US, I feel like the enumerated power idea has become a somewhat historical concept instead of being true in practice. As an example, think about civil forfeiture. I don't see how that is enumerated.

If it isn't unusual, then that only supports the idea that freedom of press is lower in the UK.

I think freedom of the press is lower there in the uk. Plus they it's too easy to win a suit for libel there.