PROFILE - Yvette Cooper: Britain's new foreign secretary

• 56-year-old Labour Party politician has held various prominent positions since first being elected as lawmaker in 1997
• Cooper has been under fire since she announced her intention to ban Palestine Action group under the 2000 Terrorism Act in June

LONDON

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been appointed as the UK's new foreign secretary, replacing David Lammy, as part of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Cabinet reshuffle on Friday.

Known as one of the highest-ranking women politicians in the Labour Party, Yvette Cooper has held various prominent positions since she was first elected as a lawmaker on May 1, 1997.

The 56-year-old Cooper became chief secretary to the Treasury and secretary of state for Work and Pensions under then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party government.

A member of the Labour Party, Cooper has been a member of parliament (MP) for Pontefract, Castleford, and Knottingley, previously Normanton, for 28 years.

Cooper was the shadow home secretary before the Labour Party won the elections last summer and then became home secretary on July 5, 2024.

During the first Cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday, Cooper was appointed as the country's new foreign secretary, replacing David Lammy, who will become the new deputy prime minister as well as justice secretary.

In 1991, Cooper won a Kennedy scholarship to study at Harvard.

When she ran for parliament for the first time in 1997, Cooper was an economics columnist and leader writer at The Independent.

Yvette Cooper has been under fire since she announced her intention for the first time to ban the Palestine Action group under the 2000 Terrorism Act in June.

In July, the ban was passed in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, leading to the arrests of hundreds of protesters at separate demonstrations for holding signs and showing support for Palestine Action.

Since then, many rights groups and activists have criticized Cooper's decision, and even Home Office staff expressed their concern over the decision amid a "tense atmosphere," some media outlets reported in June, citing an anonymous source.