Under-fire Tulip Siddiq should resign to save her career
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Editorial: The embattled anti-corruption minister should stand down over corruption allegations – before she is sacked. At first glance, it looks like an episode of TV’s Yes, Minister or The Thick of It: the government minister in charge of tackling financial corruption and the City of London is under investigation for... alleged corruption. But that is the position today of Tulip Siddiq, who remains the economic secretary to the Treasury.
Ms Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina, was an authoritarian prime minister of Bangladesh who was deposed last August after a student-led uprising. Her Awami League party is accused of laundering billions of pounds out of the country, including by buying properties in London.
It has emerged that Ms Siddiq has lived in two homes owned by figures associated with the Awami League and currently rents a third one. She strongly denies any wrongdoing and her allies suggest the charges have been trumped up by her aunt’s political enemies.
For now, Sir Keir is standing by his minister, who has referred herself to Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on ministerial standards, telling him: “I am clear I have done nothing wrong.” But some Labour MPs believe her days as a minister are numbered. They note the apparent contrast between Sir Keir’s treatment of Ms Siddiq, an ally and his parliamentary neighbour as MP for Hampstead and Highgate, and his immediate removal of the soft left transport secretary Louise Haigh – without an inquiry by Sir Laurie – when it emerged she had a conviction for wrongly telling police 10 years earlier her mobile phone had been stolen.
