Yvette Cooper attacks ‘cowardly’ government and says Britain should take 10,000 refugees

Yvette Cooper has just given a rather fine, bold speech on the refugee crisis. Some reading will disagree with her plea for Britain to take 10,000 refugees, rather than 200. But that’s part of the point: the Labour leadership contender has decided to take a stand on something, even if it annoys some. To be fair, it is probably an issue that Labour members will applaud her taking a stand on, rather than something that makes the party feel uncomfortable with, but it is much less like the ‘on-the-one-hand-this-and-the-other-that’ style of campaigning that Cooper has been criticised for at times during this contest.

The Shadow Home Secretary accused the government of ‘political cowardice that assumes British voters’ unease about immigration means they will not forgive anyone who calls for sanctuary’, and added that the current situation in which Britain has only accepted 200 refugees was ‘immoral, it’s cowardly and it’s not the British way’.