I find the further you get from London, the friendlier people tend to be with strangers in England. If you go west far enough and end up over the border in Wales, the difference is even more pronounced.
When I lived in Aberystwyth, cigarettes were basically a communist economy!
Amusingly, as part of similar laws in the UK the regulator decided to make a public shame list of non-compliant websites.
Essentially if you don’t want to follow the government’s writ that you must send your ID to a shady offshore ID firm, they’ve kindly provided a list of websites that won’t ask for it!
With this on top of trying to claim extraterritorial powers against 4chan in the US (fucking lol), I’m starting to think a key check on tyranny in the UK is the incompetence of its public institutions.