Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has defended Labour's record on returning asylum seekers and criticised Reform UK for ''continuously attacking'' the police. It comes as the Chief Constable of Essex Police has denied that officers drove counter-protesters to a demonstration outside a hotel housing asylum seekers after claims made by Nigel Farage. Report by Gluszczykm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
00:00Well, we inherited a broken asylum and immigration system, and that's why we've been taking action step by step, including 6,000 fewer asylum seekers in hotels in the last six months.
00:15Why? There's a 28 percent increase in asylum returns, failed asylum returns since the election.
00:22But it takes time to tackle that broken system.
00:26I think the police do a really important job across our country keeping communities safe.
00:33It's really important, frankly, that people support our police rather than just attacking them continually, as we've seen reform one day calling for chief constables to resign,
00:45the next day attacking women police officers who are out on our streets every single day of the week.
00:52I think it's really important across the country that we all support our police who work so hard to keep communities safe.
