When Keir Starmer became the Labour leader in 2020, Tulip Siddiq described him in her local paper as a “good friend through thick and thin”.
On Tuesday, she found out where the limits of that friendship lay after the prime minister accepted her resignation from the government after weeks of revelations about Siddiq’s closeness to her aunt, the former prime minister of Bangladesh.
“It is with sadness I accept your resignation from your ministerial role,” the prime minister wrote in an otherwise effusive letter praising her achievements.
Starmer’s bond with his Labour colleague and constituency neighbour in north London may have protected her over the past few weeks as revelations mounted about her links with her aunt’s deposed regime.
However, experts say her family background was always likely to pose a problem for her role in the British government, not least because her ministerial responsibilities included anti-corruption policy.
David Bergman, a Dhaka-based investigative journalist, said: “The reason Siddiq should have resigned was her significant moral lapse in failing to dissociate herself as the Bangladesh Awami League government led by her aunt which became increasingly authoritarian since 2013.”
Siddiq was born in London but her history is indelibly bound up with Bangladesh. Her grandfather, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was the country’s first leader after its bloody war of independence against Pakistan.
Mujib was assassinated in 1975 along with his three sons – but not his two daughters, who were on holiday in Germany. The older daughter, Hasina, returned to Bangladesh, where she became prime minister in 2009. Rehana, the younger, fled to London where she gained asylum, eventually giving birth to Siddiq.
Siddiq grew up in both London and Dhaka, and as a young person met Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and Mother Teresa alongside her aunt. She joined the Labour party aged 16 and worked for a range of organisations including Amnesty International and Save the Children.
Around this time however she was also working for her aunt’s party, describing herself as a “spokesperson” for the Awami League in the UK. According to a now-deleted section of her website, she worked “as part of [the party’s] UK and EU lobbying unit and election strategy team”.
In 2013, she was pictured alongside her aunt meeting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow.
She insists she travelled to the Russian capital merely to meet her aunt, but Bangladeshi officials are now investigating whether she brokered a deal between the two countries for a nuclear power plant at an inflated price. They allege the deal allowed her family members to embezzle billions of pounds’ worth of public money.
Two years later, Siddiq was elected to parliament for the Labour party, a victory for which she credited local activists for the Awami League. “Had it not been for your help, I would never have been able to stand here as a British MP,” she said soon afterwards at a party rally in London which her aunt also attended.
She has also been pictured multiple times introducing her aunt to British politicians, including the former Commons speaker John Bercow.
In 2020, she nominated Starmer for the leadership of her party and was rewarded for her support with a job in the shadow education team. In 2021 she was promoted to the shadow Treasury team – taking the role into government when Labour won the election last year.
Throughout her career, Siddiq had faced questions about links to her aunt’s government, especially in its later years when it was accused of locking up its political opponents. But those questions re-emerged last summer when her aunt was deposed after days of student-led protests in Dhaka.
Officials in the new Bangladeshi government launched a inquiry into corruption at the heart of Sheikh Hasina’s regime. Details also emerged about a series of properties she had lived in or owned which had been paid for by people connected to the Awami League.
Siddiq has maintained her innocence throughout, insisting her relationship with her aunt has always been personal rather than political. But earlier this month, senior officials in Downing Street told her to refer herself to Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial interests.
While Magnus was deliberating, senior government sources admitted she was likely to have to resign whether or not she was found to have broken the ministerial code.
In the end Magnus did not find she had broken the code, though he said there were still many questions about the accusations against her. Siddiq voluntarily stood aside, though a return to ministerial duties appears to be a possibility.
“You have made a difficult decision,” Starmer wrote in response to her resignation. “[I] want to be clear that the door remains open for you going forward.”
