The reason such bills get proposed and passed is because, broadly speaking, they are popular with the electorate or at least not unpopular. The reason they are

The reason such bills get proposed and passed is because, broadly speaking, they are popular with the electorate or at least not unpopular. The reason they are not unpopular, the root problem, is because the downsides are perceived as theoretical and in the future whereas the upsides are seen as real and in the present. Put simply the arguments against look like this: Oppose this bill because the government COULD abuse it and PROBABLY will abuse it in future i.e. it's all vague arguments about probabilities, and the arguments for it look like this: Support this bill because it WILL help the fight against terrorists and paedos right now For better or worse the British government has a relatively high level of trust amongst the British people. There is no British constitution and we can now see how a minority of the population is trying to convince Parliament to override the results of an actual referendum on the grounds that people are too stupid to rule themselves, so must be dictated to by small enclaves of their betters. That attitude is widespread, even if it is kind of dumb - MPs are just ordinary people too, after all, it's not like there's any filter on them beyond voting. But given that the governmental "elite" imposing its own morality and wisdom on the majority is practically a sexual turn-on for non-trivial numbers of voters, this kind of thing shouldn't surprise us. We can and probably should argue that this trust is misplaced. There's plenty of evidence of that, along with the fact that surveillance is invariably paired with secrecy so it's hard for people to judge whether the government can be trusted to begin with. But that's why such bills happen. The solution is probably not VPNs. Ultimately in a fight between internet technologists and lawmakers, sufficiently determined lawmakers will always win: China proves this. The UK's lawmakers may not be sufficiently determined but if they are the only solution is to continue making the argument to the electorate that the government cannot be trusted with such powers, and that they won't help fight terrorists and paedos anyway. Pointing out that Trump now controls the NSA might be a good start.