I think we really need to take a step back and appreciate that to some extent the UK governmental system is kind of working here. The UK government has an 80 seat majority, and it has advanced some really shonky legislation (this was an example, but the UK Bill of Rights was just as absurd), it's been quite impressive to see how successfully parliament has delayed, derailed and modified these attempts to blunder through legislation. The UK cabinet at this point has descended into a total farce, but the parts of our parliament outside of government - the committee stages, the Lords, amendments have all had great stabilizing effects and slowly forced the government into a fairly reasonable position.

>The opposition Labour Party said replacing the "prevention of harm" with an emphasis on free speech undermined the bill's purpose.

I mean... they're not wrong. The original intention behind this bill was insane, and it no longer does what it wnated. The fundamental problem that the government is facing is that there's behavior they want to discourage but can't functionally ban. Legally you have a choice, you either get ambiguous and open it up to abuse, or you go narrow and fail to really address the issue. I think this approach is fine, but we may have to revisit it.