I see many are focusing on the aspect of VPN itself and not enough as to why this is occurring in UK in particular and we should expect it in countries like Canada, and other EU countries as well in the near future.
The fact of the matter is conservative movements are surging not only in UK, EU, US but in Asia as well (ex. Recent surprise seat gains by moderate right parties).
The reason there is a common reaction across borders is the decoupling from globalism which pushed the overton window so far left that its brought a yo-yo effect to the right.
Globalism isn't a conspiracy theory its real established and demonstrable political movement to dilute all cultures by attacking their national identity, heritage through mass immigration which ultimately leads to a low trust social dynamic via crime (proven by statistics) or incompatibility (belligerence against their host counry and refusal to integrate and pushing imported foreign culture and values).
It's no wonder that such reckless push to gaslight its own ethnic/religious incumbents have swung polls in the opposite direction, and in a desperate attempt to hold on to the power that globalism has given to those that preach it, ironically turn to fascist tactics such as censorship, criminalization of speech and increased surveillance that only emboldens more overton window shift to the right.
You kept calling people "far right" yesterday for slightest disagreements to progressive policies in order to censor and intimidate them and today you have huge number of people who no longer care for that label as they find safety in size and number.
At this rate, given the way things are going in UK and EU and many other countries, its going to manifest in extremely far right wing policies being normalized and coming to power as majority of the population becomes "far right" and the new normal center, and those that called themselves "liberal progressive left" will find themselves outside the Overton window.
We've probably seen these ebbs and flows in politics countless times throughout human history and I understand better as to why things like Bolsheviks, Nazis, Communists came to rise.
The demand to bypass political censorship and surveillance increasing in the West, the so called bastion of democracy and freedom, will backfire into wide scale civil unrest. We've already seen a preview of it in Spain recently, where a group of Moroccan migrant gangs have attacked locals and in turn locals fought back and burned down a large mosque.
I've been to UK, France and Ireland recently and there is deep deep resentment from the locals towards the Muslim and North African population, and it reminded me of my childhood growing up in Lebanon, witnessing the arrival of Muslim refugees, neighborhood demographics changing, ppl being jailed and labeled racist for complaining, then came civil war between the new majority group and the incumbents, political concession by virtue signaling equity and harmony which lead to even more corruption within those demographics that did not respect agreements and its ultimate demise today.
I cannot see a future without the same events unfolding in Lebanon playing out in UK. All it takes is one major event (for us in Lebanon, it was Muslim militant group attacking a church) to ignite the flame, and as you saw Torres, Spain it finally took an elderly Spain man being victim of attack by 3rd gen Moroccan youth to explode into violence.
Remigration unfortunately is the only way that can peacefully diffuse smoe of the tensions and to avoid the same fate as Lebanon but I can see this will be a difficult path especially innocent individuals of that demographic caught in the middle during this rapid Overton Window shift accelerated by an increasingly sophisticated users and dystopian surveillance apparatus....