In December, Siddiq was named in a Bangladeshi probe following allegations that her family embezzled money from infrastructure projects, including a nuclear power contract for $12.65 billion.
After being implicated in fraud investigations in Bangladesh following the overthrow of her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, as the country’s leader, anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq resigned from the UK government.
Siddiq stated in a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday that keeping her job would probably “be a distraction from the work of the government” but that she had done nothing wrong.
Claims concerning Siddiq’s ties to Hasina, who left Bangladesh in August following a student-led rebellion against her decades-long, increasingly autocratic stint as prime minister, have plagued the 42-year-old.
Hasina, 77, has refused calls for extradition to face allegations of mass murder from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission said Monday that she and Siddiq’s family members were being investigated for graft once more, this time for allegedly grabbing profitable plots in a Dhaka suburb.
Siddiq and other family members had already been designated as targets of the commission’s inquiry into claims of $5 billion in embezzlement related to a nuclear power facility.
As part of the investigation, Bangladeshi money laundering investigators have already directed the nation’s major banks to provide information about transactions involving Siddiq.
Siddiq stated that she had acted with “full transparency” and that her “family connections were a matter of public record” in her letter of resignation.
Her “loyalty is and always will be” to the Labour government and the “programme of national renewal and transformation it has embarked upon”), she insisted.
“I have therefore decided to resign from my ministerial position.”
A number of homes in London
“I appreciate that you have made a difficult decision to end ongoing distraction from delivering our agenda to change Britain,” Starmer said, thanking Siddiq for her work. “I want to be clear that the door remains open for you going forward.”
Siddiq is a Member of Parliament for a constituency in north London. During his tenure as a minister, he was in charge of the UK’s financial services industry and anti-corruption initiatives.
Details of the allegations that she lived for years in a London apartment purchased by an offshore organization associated with two Bangladeshi businessmen were made public over the weekend by a Sunday Times investigation.
According to the publication, a Bangladeshi lawyer with ties to Hasina, her family, and her overthrown government eventually received the apartment as a gift.
Additionally, it stated that Siddiq and her family received or made use of a number of additional London residences that were purchased by Awami League party members or allies.
Emma Reynolds, a pensions minister, was quickly nominated to Siddiq’s position by Starmer.
After 14 years in opposition, the Labour Party regained control in the 2024 national election, and Reynolds, 47, was returned to office.
She formerly served as a member for a different seat in central England from 2010 to 2019, and she currently represents the Wycombe constituency in southern England.
