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Will Tulip Siddiq still be the City minister by the end of this week?
It’s an important question, for a number of reasons.
Siddiq’s fate matters a great deal to Keir Starmer and the government, because nobody wants to lose an anti-corruption minister to a corruption scandal. It matters to the wider Labour party because Siddiq is close to the PM and is an important figure in the party, particularly in the capital.
It matters, also, to the new Bangladeshi authorities who are currently combing through the ashes of the country’s previous government which stands accused of ‘crimes against humanity’ and which was led by Tulip Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina.
The interim leader of Bangladesh, the Nobel peace-prize winning economist Muhammad Yunus, has already commented on the “irony” of Siddiq, whose responsibilities include tackling financial crime, being accused of corruption. He told the Sunday Times that Siddiq, who is alleged to have benefited from the use of properties in London linked to her aunt’s regime, should “seek forgiveness from the people.”
Siddiq insists she has done nothing wrong, but authorities in Bangladesh are determined to cast their investigative net wide enough to catch Hasina’s wider family. You could argue, therefore, that the row also matters to the future of UK-Bangladesh relations.
Finally, the question of Siddiq’s future in ministerial office matters to the City, and therefore the country. How could it not? Her responsibilities at the Treasury include financial stability, competitiveness, banking, regulatory oversight, capital markets and the general health and wellbeing of the financial services sector.
It also includes responsibility for the UK’s approach to financial crime, corruption and sanctions – a responsibility which has been labelled “no longer tenable” by Spotlight on Corruption, part of a coalition of UK anti-corruption bodies that has called for this part of her role to removed from her remit in light of “conflicts of interest.”
While this group has stopped short of calling on Siddiq to resign, it is obviously absurd to imagine a scenario where she remains in office but with an awkward part of her brief given to someone else. The message from anti-corruption campaigners is therefore clear; her position is no longer credible or appropriate.
They are right, and Tulip Siddiq should resign.
The British and Bangladeshi investigations may well exonerate her completely but until that day arrives, if indeed it does, the City deserves a minister whose relentless and dedicated focus is on supporting this vital sector.
