BEREAVED families outside Downing Street today demanded that the government holds a Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (Cobra) emergency meeting to help tackle the rise of knife crime on Britain’s streets.

Hundreds of protesters stood in Whitehall for #OperationShutdown to demand that the government takes urgent action in the way that it would in response to terrorism.

Organiser Lucy Martindale, whose cousin was fatally stabbed, said: “If there is a terrorist attack and one person is killed there is a Cobra meeting.

“Several people daily are being killed on our streets, so why is this not being treated as the national emergency that it is?”

The group is also calling for the government to halt all further planned cuts to local council budgets, restore funding to pre-austerity levels, restore police budgets and reverse cuts to education.

The calls of the protesters come as Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick said that she thought the government must “step up” its efforts to respond to the rise in violent crime.

The government has promised an extra £100 million for police in areas affected in a major way by knife-related violence and have given offices sweeping new stop-and-search powers.

However, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said that the government had “broken its promise” after he was informed that the Metropolitan Police was given only £17m.

At the demonstration, Shabbir from Harrow told the Star: “The amount of violent crime on our streets is an epidemic now and it needs urgent action.

“I do think that the big blame behind this rising violence is down to austerity.

“It’s down to the government underfunding schools, cutting youth and mental health services which will inevitably have a big impact.

“This will take a future away from so many young people and we need urgent action that goes directly to the root of the problem.

“I think that means that we just have to get rid of this government.”

The protesters are also calling for an independent investigation into the growth in school exclusions under the Tories, as well as for a better rehabilitation model for prisoners to stop them reoffending after they leave prison.

They are also demanding that every person jailed for murder or manslaughter must serve their full terms in prison.