[mokash]

I'm trying to be charitable but I really don't understand your line of reasoning. To me it seems like their hand is being forced by the UK Government. They don't want to introduce a backdoor for global users by complying so they are simply disabling the feature for users in the UK. If the feature does not exist then there is no need to comply. That seems... reasonable?

The blame squarely lies with the government in the UK and that is correctly where it seems like most of the anger is being directed.

[Rohansi]

The UK government is not a dictatorship. Bad policies like this should be pushed back against by both corporations and individuals or things will get worse. Easier said than done, I know, but Apple instantly rolling over is not a good sign for a company supposedly big on privacy.

[dfawcus]

It is the nature of the UK Parliamentary system, that when the party in power has a large majority, it is essentially an elective dictatorship. Then 5 years later we may get a different dictator.

This is a well known issue with the system. There are few checks and balances, it rather depends upon honourable behaviour by the participants.

That honourable behaviour ceased to be practiced from around 2000 onwards, and so things have been deteriorating.