The U.K government’s anti-corruption minister, Tulip Siddiq has resigned after being named in fraud investigations which begun in Bangladesh after her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, was removed as the country’s leader.
Siddiq reiterated in a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer that she had done nothing illegal, but that continuing in office would likely “be a distraction from the work of the government”.
Siddiq, 42, has been hounded by allegations about her ties to Hasina, who fled Bangladesh in August following a student-led movement against her decades-long, increasingly autocratic reign as prime minister.
Hasina, 77, has defied extradition requests to face Bangladeshi charges including of mass murder.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission revealed on Monday that she and her family members, including Siddiq, were under investigation for another graft case, this time involving an alleged land grab of profitable properties in a Dhaka neighborhood.
Family members, including Siddiq, had already been identified as targets of the commission’s inquiry investigating allegations of $5 billion corruption related to a nuclear power facility.
Bangladeshi money laundering investigators have already ordered the country’s major banks to turn them information about transactions involving Siddiq as part of the investigation.
In her letter of resignation, Siddiq claimed her “family connections were a matter of public record” and that she had acted with “full transparency”.
She insisted her “loyalty is and always will be” to the Labour government and the “programme of national renewal and transformation it has embarked upon”.
“I have therefore decided to resign from my ministerial position.”
Starmer thanked Siddiq for her work and said: “I appreciate that to end ongoing distraction from delivering our agenda to change Britain, you have made a difficult decision and want to be clear that the door remains open for you going forward.
Siddiq is an MP for a north London constituency whose ministerial job was part of the finance ministry and responsible for the UK’s financial services sector as well as anti-corruption measures.
After Siddiq’s resignation, Starmer swiftly appointed Emma Reynolds, a former pensions minister to fill in the role.
Reynolds, 47, was elected to office at the 2024 national election, which saw the Labour Party regain power after 14 years in opposition.
She currently represents the Wycombe constituency in southern England and previously served as a lawmaker for a different seat in central England between 2010 and 2019.
