I’m a staunch advocate of free speech, but I think that a specific and credible threat of violence should be considered a crime (assault) and subject to prosecution, even though it’s “just words”.

Similarly, fraud is "just words". This point of view seems to assume that words carry very little weight, while our civilization is based on them.

> a specific and credible threat of violence

But that doesn't seem to be the case here at all.

Correct. It is responsive to “no one should be jailed for words” not to “this guy should/shouldn’t be jailed for his specific words”.

Words can be extremely damaging. The US has libel and slander laws. What's so different about hate speech? It's harmful, almost as harmful as some forms of physical abuse.

Don't forget that most domestic abuse and physical abuse starts as verbal abuse, so criminalising that is not unreasonable

The UK has it's own standards for speech. They don't need to adhere to the free speech absolutism of the United States. This would be unacceptable in the United States, but many places do not protect racist speech. Theres good arguments on both sides. We'll see which works out better in the long run.

Especially words against willing public figures, living above average lives