Tulip Siddiq explained: Why Labour's anti-corruption minister is under investigation

Read time: 4 mins

In brief…

• Tulip Siddiq has referred herself to Labour’s ethics advisor over family links to the deposed leader of Bangladesh, and says she has done nothing wrong.
• Siddiq has been accused of benefiting, indirectly, from an embezzlement scheme which emerged from her aunt’s controversial regime.
• The journalist who broke the story tells The News Agents there is now a “tension” between Siddiq and the Labour Party, and what this means for her government role.

What’s the story?

Another day, another headache for Keir Starmer and his Labour government.

This time, the media glare is focused on anti-corruption minister, Tulip Siddiq, after she was named in an investigation into a £3.9 billion embezzlement case in Bangladesh.

Siddiq says she has done nothing wrong, and has referred herself to the Prime Minister's ethics adviser for investigation. She is not considered part of the case itself, but is believed to have benefitted indirectly from it.

Her links to the embezzlement are through her aunt Sheikh Hasina, the former PM of Bangladesh who was deposed in 2024 after national protests and investigations into her conduct while in power. Siddiq owns, and has lived in, London properties which have links to Hasina and money missing from Bangladesh.

Muhammad Yunus, the new leader of Bangladesh, says Siddiq should apologise for her time spent in the properties, while Kemi Badenoch has called on Keir Starmer to sack Siddiq.

“The opposition are calling on Tulip Siddiq to go, because none of this feels right – it doesn't pass the smell test,” says Emily Maitlis.

Emily says what she, and many others, want to know is what Siddiq has done wrong, and whether it is all down to her lack of transparency over her family ties to Sheikh Hasina and those London properties.

“It is entirely possible that Tulip Siddiq, as she says herself, has done absolutely nothing wrong.” says Lewis Goodall.

“Yes, she's got this relationship with her aunt, but she can't help that.

“Everyone's got crazy family members – although not many are usually deposed leaders of countries.”

Who is Sheikh Hasina?

Sheikh Hasina is the longest serving Prime Minister in Bangladesh – but this ended under a dark cloud for her, and the country.

“On a global stage, she was courted by Western leaders,” Gabriel Pogrund, The Times’ Whitehall editor, who broke the story, tells The News Agents.

“She was hailed for what she represented.”

But between 2009 and 2024 her leadership was blamed for growing debt, inflation, unemployment and more, due to corruption and mismanagement at the heart of her government, as billions of dollars were moved out of the country by criminals, and political prisoners ‘disappeared’.

Pogrund says there was also a "violent and bloody dimension of her leadership," which included students being shot at point blank range during 2024 protests which resulted in the death of over 1,000 people. Eventually, Hasina fled the country and conceded power.

In December, the Bangladesh government opened an investigation into the embezzlement from the accounts of a construction project, which Hasina is linked to.

Yunus wants Siddiq’s London property turned over to Bangladeshi ownership, having said the way in which it was first acquired was “robbery”.

Why is this a problem for Labour?

"Tulip Siddiq is our minister entrusted with preventing financial crime and money laundering, and I think it's reasonable to say that we should expect at least transparency on the theme of these properties gifted to her by regime elites," Pogrund says.

It is "a fact", he adds, that she has been a beneficiary of Hasina's regime in Bangladesh, and having previously spoken against offshore trusts, Pogrund says the situation has resulted in a "tension" between her Labour role and the lack of transparency around her own family ties.

"For the anti corruption minister to have – in any way – benefited from her ties to a corrupt regime poses questions," he says.

"But that doesn't mean they can't be answered."

Siddiq's links to Hasina, and her regime, will now be investigated by the Labour Party’s ethics advisor, Laurie Magnus.

But comparisons have been drawn between this situation, and that of Louise Haigh, who resigned from Starmer's government in November 2024, when it was revealed she had made a guilty plea in a fraud charge in 2014 relating to a mobile phone she reported stolen in a mugging.

Pogrund says Haigh's feet "didn't touch the floor" when this was made public, as she was swiftly shown the door from her cabinet role.

Emily says the final decision on the outcome could depend, as these things often do, on media interest in the story.

“They'll give it a few weeks,” she says.

“Probably, if the story gets bigger, she'll go, and if the story dies down, she'll stay.”

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