Labour on a mission to halve knife crime, Cooper says

Cooper also spoke about the riots that followed the knife attack in Southport and recieved a standing ovation for her comments.

She said the violent disorder “happened because criminals thought they would get away with it”.

“They were wrong,” she said. “With Keir Starmer’s leadership, this Labour government made clear that we would back our police, not blame them.”

In a speech peppered with references to a “serious government”, Cooper stressed Labour’s general election victory meant the party was able to introduce policies and told her audience that politics mattered.

She also addressed migration, saying the asylum system was in chaos and that the government was boosting border security.

There were also pledges to tackle violence against women and girls, an issue Cooper called “a national emergency”.

She promised to put domestic abuse specialists into 999 control rooms and to pursue perpetrators who put lives at risk.

The home secretary said the government wanted to halve violence against women and girls in a decade and declared “our daughters deserve better than this”.