in my experience, they'll not only be quick to remind you that they don't have free speech in their country, but they'll do so while beaming with pride.

The only Brits who will tell you this with anything approaching 'pride' are stockholm syndrome'd leftists and cuckservatives who grew up believing the lie that they were in a free country, and now that they've realised they're not, have decided they'd rather take the the easy, comfortable, non-confrontational "and that's a good thing!" approach rather than acknowledge the uncomfortable reality.

They do this by telling themselves that only bad people will ever have the police knocking on their door because of a word they said. They tell themselves it will never happen to them.