Do we like Yvette Cooper?
Our score: 7 out of 10. She sponsored same-sex marriage law and led Palestine's recognition, but sidestepped a straight answer on trans issues and her Palestine Action ban split the courts.
Cooper has spent the last couple of years bouncing around the biggest jobs in government. She was Home Secretary when she banned Palestine Action, then Foreign Secretary from September 2025, and in July 2026 she landed at Health and Social Care. We couldn't open much on her early life or how she got here, so this is a read of the recent record rather than a full biography.
The biggest stoush is the Palestine Action ban. As Home Secretary she proscribed the group as a terrorist organisation, and in February 2026 the High Court found that decision disproportionate and said she hadn't followed her own process. In June 2026 the Court of Appeal reversed that, calling the ban a fair balance, though it accepted many people may feel a chilling effect. Co-founder Huda Ammori says she'll seek to go to the Supreme Court.
Where you land on it depends on whether you read the ban as protecting the public from a group the judges described as proposing unlawful violence, or as a heavy-handed use of terror law on protest. Nearly 2,800 people had been arrested at protests since July 2025, most for holding signs backing the group. It's a civil liberties fight rather than a hate one, but it's a real black mark for plenty of her own side.
On the harm test, the record on gay rights is good. She sponsored the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and in 2015 promised a review of the law covering trans and intersex people. On trans issues more broadly it's murkier: in 2022 she declined to define what a woman is and said “I think people get themselves down rabbit holes on this one.” The PinkNews piece we opened doesn't state her view on puberty blockers or the Cass Review, so that's an honest gap.
She's also had a run-in with the numbers. In September 2025 she said August small-boat crossings were lower than in any previous August, and Full Fact found that false: they were the lowest since 2021. It reads as overreach in a spin moment rather than a pattern, but it's on the record.
In February 2026 she publicly broke from the Downing Street line over Peter Mandelson, saying he should never have been appointed US ambassador and that she felt angry about it. Speaking out against the PM's own decision isn't nothing for a cabinet minister.