The warning signs were always there. When a photo of Tulip Siddiq standing alongside Vladimir Putin and her aunt, the now ousted leader of Bangladesh, emerged in 2015, alarm bells rang within the Labour party.
At the time, Siddiq was the Labour candidate for the marginal seat of Hampstead and Kilburn. Yet she brushed aside concerns over her presence at the signing of a billion-dollar arms deal and nuclear power project at the Kremlin two years earlier.
“I wasn’t part of my aunt’s delegation. I went because I don’t get to see her much,” she told the Evening Standard. “At the meeting, Putin said: ‘Is your family here? I’d like a picture.’ In retrospect, I should have thought about how it looked. I think Putin would wonder: ‘Who is this random girl I am meant to be making arms deals with?’”
There are now some inside Downing Street – after the scale of her links to the ousted Bangladeshi government became clear – who wish they had thought a little bit more about how it looked before they appointed her as the government’s anti-corruption minister.
“It was an own goal,” said one Labour MP. “Everybody knew she was a member of Bangladesh’s political dynasty with links to huge power and money. Who on earth thought it was a good idea drawing attention to all that by giving her that job?”
Siddiq has been cleared of breaking the ministerial code by Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on ministerial standards, who said there was “no suggestion” of any unusual financial arrangements or assets derived from “anything other than legitimate means”.
Despite that, his examination of the allegations that Siddiq has lived in multiple properties tied to the ousted Bangladeshi government is far from conclusive, and underlines the opacity of her links to the former regime led by her aunt, Sheikh Hasina.
Magnus said that despite providing “considerable background information” that her affairs were in order, it was “regrettable” that, because of the passage of time, Siddiq was “unable to provide conclusive documentation” that this was the case.
The findings came as no surprise to Downing Street, and threw up no new revelations. “It just doesn’t pass the smell test,” one senior government insider said last week. “Even if she hasn’t done anything technically wrong, she’ll have to go.”
There was particular unease over her claim that she was unaware of the origins of her flat in King’s Cross, which she thought was a gift from her parents rather than a person with links to the regime, despite having signed a Land Registry transfer form relating to it at the time.
“Who is given a flat but doesn’t know where it comes from? It just stretches credulity. And it’s so far removed from most people’s lives to even be in that position,” a government source said.
Keir Starmer, Siddiq’s north London constituency neighbour, has repeatedly proven that he is capable of ruthlessness, most recently with the abrupt departure of the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, after it emerged she had been convicted of fraud over a missing work phone.
So some in government are asking whether he moved fast enough to contain the row over Siddiq when it became clear her position as anti-corruption minister was untenable. No 10 sources said he wanted to do it by the book, even if the outcome of Magnus’s inquiry was all but inevitable.
“We always knew how this was going to end but Keir felt it was right to go through the official process,” one said. While not as close friends as some reports have suggested, Siddiq gets on well with the prime minister.
She was credited by the government for referring herself to the standards adviser, even though the Guardian understands she was “leaned on” to do so. The same is believed to be true of her decision to stand down.
In his response to her resignation, Starmer told her that “the door remains open” to a return to government. He has appointed Emma Reynolds, a former lobbyist, as City minister in her place. The government’s struggle to restore public trust in British politics is ongoing.
