When people describe the UK situation like these, they are cancelled, downvoted to hell and called right wing extremists. I am positively surprised you were not downvoted or flagged.

What is UK trying to achieve? To maintain, as much as possible, a pretty controlling state in power. It is a country with no free speech, no significant human rights of any sort, population is at the mercy of the govern and they want to keep it that way. Apps like Signal give people some free speech - you cannot publicly say what you want to say, but at least you can say it to others without being cancelled or arrested for opinions that are not liked by the govern.