I suspect one factor is that the many British people trust in the secret ballot and the old democratic system of voting to change things. So, as long as they can vote secretly, and vote in the people they want, the system will correct itself and any bad choice by a government can be corrected.

I guess, speaking as a Brit, we don't take the tech stuff that seriously. The only thing to actually effect me so far has been their attempts to block torrent search sites which involve me having to fire up a free vpn about once a month. And token efforts to reduce copyright abuse are sort of justified I guess.

Re authoritarianism I worry more about the G7s spokesman for Russia. Also I went along to spectate the Brexit court case but parliamentary democracy won that one https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38733090

I'd rather ask why the HN crowd overreacts to an idea floated by a low-ranking government minister that is nowhere close to becoming a law.

The main reason is that politicians come up with these ideas all the time. They never actually see the light of day in terms of implementation. Therefore these kind of announcements are met with a mixture of cynicism and "it's never going happen".

In general the British public isn’t apathetic about this, but the electoral two-party system distorts the government.

The economy is still decent for people at the top, and people at the bottom are constantly fed scapegoats for their state of things (i.e. foreigners).

Anti-authoritarianism only flourishes when a significant number of people is fed up with what they perceive as incompetent leadership - at that point, the manners of such leadership start to matter.

That's a case of the pot calling the kettle black if I've ever seen one.

Say it into the CCTV camera, we'll be over here polishing.

Because the UK government is so incompetent right now that I doubt anyone would believe they could pull something like this off.

That and of course the predicted drop in tax receipts due to Brexit has basically caused a widespread freeze on IT spending across the government. So a Digital ID has zero chance of being implemented in the next decade or so.

Must've thought 1984 was a manual instead of literature.

The "stiff upper lip" culture of basically just sucking it up may have a part in it. This thing doesn't immediately affect me or mine, so why fight it?