Although probably based on some hard-to-swallow truths, this film is not a biopic, and the plot involving the family isn't based on real events or people. It is probably wise to assume that there were British aristocrats, or even just people of the middle or upper-middle classes who believed in trying to stop the war by making a deal with Hitler, however it definitely was not all Brits, and would have been a completely undercover operation involving the government (as the film shows). it certainly was not general feeling of Britons.
You are right that the film is creepy and like a bad dream, that is exactly the feeling I had. I felt like I was in a Kafka novel, where the protagonist is completely in the dark about what is going on around them and the heavy burden of suffocating paranoia is ever increasing. Very powerful stuff and I imagine, so reflective of the general feeling at the time. It's really important to remember whilst watching the film that, even though many people alive had experienced the first world war, this war was still terrifying and confusing, and nobody knew what was going to happen the next day. I think to parallel Anne's story beside the impending doom of war was brilliant and it was suffocating to watch but at the same time totally gripping.
So, yes, although there were, we can assume, some extremely awful and morally corrupt Brits doing some nasty work in the lead up to the war, don't forget that absolutely nothing would ever justify the Nazi ideology, not even being 'honest about what they were'. And although awful, the Brits who were presumably doing these things to try and prevent war did not agree with the Nazi's, as Bill Nighty's character states at one point, they hated him as much as the next Brit, but they were also distracted and kind of blinded by their determination not to let anything bad happen to their country. It's so easy in retrospect to blame people for their actions, but you have to remember that these people were in an impossible and desperate situation and it would have been so difficult to know how your actions would play out etc. Many people who wanted to make a deal with Hitler and stop the war would have been horrified to learn that innocent Brits had been killed by their own. Obviously I would never justify those killings if they did happen, but the overall point I'm trying to make is that you can't generalise a whole country because you watched one film loosely based on possibly true events that tells the story of one family!! Ok?!
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