UK riots: Respect for police needs to be restored after ‘brazen abuse and contempt’ by rioters, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says
Yvette Cooper says people too often feel “crime has no consequences” as she promised to restore confidence in policing and the justice system.
The home secretary has said respect for the police needs to be restored after the “brazen abuse and contempt” shown by rioters.
Yvette Cooper said there is “lots of rebuilding to be done” after a fortnight of rioting following the Southport stabbings on 29 July.
“Respect for the police, respect for the law, and respect for each other is where we must start,” she wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
She said too often people feel “crime has no consequences” and that “has to change” as she promised to restore confidence in policing and the criminal justice system.
Hundreds of people involved in the riots have been arrested and dozens have already been sentenced after the government pushed for them to be put through the justice system speedily.
The disorder was spurred on by false online claims the Southport stabbings suspect was an illegal immigrant. Axel Rudakubana, 17, born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents, has been charged with three murders and 10 attempted murders.
Ms Cooper said the country should have been talking about the deaths of three young girls and those who were injured.
Instead, she said, police officers had to “defend themselves against bricks, bottles, fireworks and other missiles, as they try to protect mosques, hotels and high streets against criminal violence and racist attacks”.
The home secretary said the attacks on communities and police have been “a disgraceful assault on the rule of law itself”.
“Those who try to suggest that this violence is about protest and grievance are making excuses for criminals and thugs,” she warned.
She said she is not prepared to “tolerate the brazen abuse and contempt” from a minority towards police.
And she said there has been a “disrespect for law and order that has been allowed to grow in recent years”.
“We must take action to restore respect for the police, and respect for the law,” she added.
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Ms Cooper said the government planned to put thousands more neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers (PCSOs) “back on to our streets”.
In a dig at the former Conservative government, she said Labour wanted to reverse “the collapse in community policing” over the past 14 years and wants to rebuild the relationships between local communities and their police forces.
Ms Cooper promised to work with the police “rather than just blaming them from afar, to tackle problems and raise standards”.
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Without naming anyone, she said there had been “shameful behaviour” from “some senior politicians and pundits who sought to undermine the legitimacy and authority of the police”.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and X owner Elon Musk are two of the most well-known people to have accused the UK of having “two-tier policing”.
Two-tier policing, flatly denied by the government and police chiefs, is the perception that some protests are treated more favourably than others.
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Sir Keir Starmer has cancelled his summer holiday plans as the government continues to deal with the fallout from the rioting.
He instructed police to remain on high alert over the weekend, but no widespread unrest materialised.
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Anti-racism protesters gathered in London, Belfast and Edinburgh. Thousands demonstrated outside the headquarters of Reform UK.
