Ties between Labour MP Tulip Siddiq and deposed Bangladeshi regime under spotlight
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City minister under pressure to explain why she benefited from property paid for by the regime of her aunt Sheikh Hasina. Tulip Siddiq reacted with anger when she was confronted in 2017 by reporters from Channel 4 asking her to intervene in the case of Ahmad bin Quasem, a British-educated lawyer who had allegedly been abducted in Bangladesh by the regime of Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina.
“Are you aware that I am a British MP and that I’m born in London?” she asked Alex Thomson, the channel’s chief correspondent. “Are you implying that I’m a Bangladeshi? Because I don’t think that’s the right thing to imply.”. Despite Siddiq’s insistence that she has little to do with her aunt’s now-deposed government in Dhaka, the City minister is now under pressure to explain why she has benefited from property paid for by people connected with that regime.
Siddiq, who has responsibility for UK anti-corruption policy, has referred herself to Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, to decide whether she has broken the ministerial code. But whatever Magnus concludes, critics say Siddiq’s desire to distance herself from her family’s authoritarian regime in Bangladesh has glossed over how close she really is to them and their Awami League party.
