My understanding is that there is an almost universal rule in Western & Central Europe that vehicles entering the roundabout must give way to vehicles that are already in the roundabout.
There are some rare exceptions to this in France, where a special sign is used to warn drivers that traffic entering the roundabout has right of way. See this writeup about this at the UK RAC website: Lesser-known French road rules you’ll need to follow on your trip.
I'm going to guess that the German driver who cut you off in the UK was probably used to looking in the opposite direction (to the left, rather than to the right) to check and see if there was oncoming traffic already in the roundabout. There is also the possibility that if traffic was backed up both within the roundabout and at the approaches to the roundabout, the German driver was following the "zipper merge" protocol that is common in Germany.
Michael
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