If the bill goes into law in its current form—and there is not much to stop it now—Britons can be prosecuted for a remark that a worker in a public space overhears and finds insulting. The law will apply to pubs, clubs, restaurants, soccer grounds, and all the other places where the country gathers and, all too frequently, ridicules one another.

The bill has been dubbed the “Banter Bill” in a last-stand flourish of native wit. But it’s no joke. It is further proof of the state-sponsored decline of free speech in Britain—a decline rightly criticized by Vice President J.D. Vance, who, despite the demands of his day job, still finds time for some forthright banter on X.

The government says the bill will enhance workers’ rights and improve workplace safety and gender equality by increasing employers’ responsibility for their staff. A line in Clause 20 of the bill proposes that employers must take “all reasonable steps” to prevent staff from “non-specific” “harassment” “by third parties” in the course of their employment.

But sexual harassment and workplace harassment are already unlawful in Britain. So are “spreading malicious rumors,” “picking on or regularly undermining someone,” and “denying someone’s training or promotion opportunities” on grounds of age, sex, disability, gender reassignment, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion, or belief, or sexual orientation. The Equality Act of 2010 also makes employers primarily responsible for preventing the “bullying and harassment” of employees by other employees.

Where the Banter Bill strikes new ground is by making employers liable for employees’ feelings about their customers, too. It will allow employees to define “harassment” under the lowest of thresholds: taking offense.

If a server feels offended when a drinker in a pub says there’s too much immigration (a sentiment shared by 63 percent of Britons in a recent Ipsos poll), or if a bartender feels offended when someone makes a rude joke about drag queens (in a country where the pantomime dame is a comic institution), their employer will be legally liable for their hurt feelings.