Yvette Cooper

UK Foreign Secretary - Declined UK participation in Board of Peace

The United Nations has served as the primary venue for international conflict resolution since 1945. On January 22, 2026, President Trump launched an alternative: the Board of Peace, a body he chairs for life, where permanent membership costs $1 billion and he alone holds veto power over all decisions. Nearly a month ago on February 19, member states pledged $5 billion toward Gaza reconstruction and thousands of personnel for security forces at the inaugural meeting held at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington.

Updated Feb 19

United Kingdom Foreign Secretary - Led joint announcement attributing Navalny's death to Russia

Alexei Navalny survived one poisoning attempt with a military-grade nerve agent in August 2020. He did not survive the second. On the two-year anniversary of his death in an Arctic prison, five European nations announced laboratory confirmation that Russian authorities killed him with epibatidine—a toxin found in South American poison dart frogs that does not exist naturally anywhere in Russia. The coordinated announcement at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2026, marks the first formal attribution of Navalny's death to the Russian state, backed by forensic evidence from tissue samples covertly obtained and smuggled out of Russia.

Updated Feb 16

Former Home Secretary (decision-maker) - Decision to proscribe ruled unlawful by High Court

Britain's High Court ruled on February 13, 2026 that the government acted illegally when it banned Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last summer—the first time a UK court has overturned a terrorism proscription through judicial review. The three-judge panel found that while the group's tactics of breaking into factories and damaging military aircraft were criminal, they did not meet the threshold for terrorism under law. The ruling calls into question arrests of more than 2,700 people and charges against 250 under the Terrorism Act.

Updated Feb 13

UK Foreign Secretary - Announced the Dec 19, 2025 Syria-related sanctions package

Britain just named names in Syria’s ugliest post-Assad story: who helped kill civilians, and who paid for the machinery of abuse. The UK’s new package freezes assets, bans travel, and tries to cut sanctioned figures off from doing business through the UK.

Updated Dec 19, 2025