Who is Tulip Siddiq? The outgoing Labour minister with ties to Bangladesh who campaigned to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq has resigned after controversy over links to her aunt’s ousted political movement in Bangladesh.
The Hampstead and Highgate MP is probably best known for campaigning for the release of her constituent, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained in Iran for six years.
Politics latest: Embattled City minister leaves government
The mother-of-two also hit the headlines in 2019 when she delayed having a C-section so she could vote against Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, turning up to parliament heavily pregnant and in a wheelchair.
After giving birth she went on to make history by becoming the first MP to vote by proxy.
Ms Siddiq was first elected to parliament in 2015, in what was then the most marginal seat in the country, and before that served as a local councillor in Camden.
The 42-year-old is a niece of Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August following an uprising against her 20-year leadership.
In blog posts written in late 2008 and early 2009, when she was a Labour activist, Ms Siddiq described campaigning with her aunt in the south Asian country’s general election and celebrating her victory.
Tulip Siddiq (far left) with her aunt, Sheikh Hasina (third left), and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a 2013 signing ceremony in the Kremlin. Pic: AP
Ms Siddiq’s maternal grandfather was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first president, who was assassinated along with most of his family in a military coup in 1975.
Her mother and aunt survived because they were abroad at the time – her mother going on to claim political asylum in the UK, where the Labour MP was born.
Ms Siddiq lived in south London until she was five then spent 10 years living in different parts of Asia, including India and Bangladesh.
She returned to the UK capital as a teenager, where she has lived ever since.
Tulip Siddiq campaigned to help free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Pic: PA
Ms Siddiq has previously described having an “unusual childhood”, when she met the likes of Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.
She said she joined the Labour Party because of the NHS, but living in places like Bangladesh made it “hard not to be political because politics plays an everyday part in your life”.
However, it is her links to the country’s political dynasty that have brought her down.
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Ms Siddiq has been under pressure since December, when she was named in court documents which detailed claims her family embezzled billions of pounds from a nuclear power project in Bangladesh.
She is alleged to have helped coordinate meetings with the Russian government regarding the Rooppur nuclear infrastructure scheme in 2013.
She has also come under scrutiny over reports she lived in properties in London linked to allies of her aunt.
The Conservatives had called for Ms Siddiq to be sacked, while Bangladeshi leader Muhammad Yunus said London properties used by the MP should be investigated and handed back to his government if they were acquired through “plain robbery”.
Ms Siddiq insists she has “done nothing wrong”, but last week referred herself to the prime minister’s ethics watchdog.
At the time, Sir Keir Starmer said she had “acted entirely properly” in referring herself to Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent ethics adviser, and said he had “full confidence” in her.
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Tulip Siddiq is asked if she will step down
Ms Siddiq returns to the backbenches just six months after getting a job in government.
She was appointed the economic secretary to the Treasury after Labour’s election victory in July.
As the city minister – or anti-corruption minister as the role is often called – she held responsibility for financial crime and illicit finance.
Before the general election, she held shadow positions for the Treasury and education departments under Sir Keir Starmer.
She was also part of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet between 2016-17 but resigned over his order not to “block” the bill to trigger Article 50 and start Britain’s exit from the EU.
After a summer dominated by criticism over the small boats crisis and asylum hotels, Labour says it’s planning to overhaul the “broken” asylum system.
As MPs return to Westminster today, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will speak about the government’s success in tackling people smugglers and plans for border security reform.
August saw the lowest number of Channel crossings since 2019 – but the last year has the most on record. Pic: Reuters
Labour hopes that the raft of changes being proposed will contribute to ending the use of asylum hotels, an issue which has led to widespread protests over the summer.
Ms Cooper will set out planned changes to the refugee family reunion process to give “greater fairness and balance”, and speak to the government’s promise to “smash the gangs” behind English Channel crossings.
National Crime Agency (NCA) figures show record levels of disruption of immigration crime networks in 2024/25. Officials believe this contributed to the lowest number of boats crossing the Channel in August since 2019.
But, despite the 3,567 arrivals in August being the lowest since 2021, when looking across the whole of 2025, the figure of 29,003 is the highest on record for this point in a year.
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Labour says actions to strengthen border security, increase returns and overhaul the asylum system, will result in “putting much stronger foundations in place so we can fix the chaos we inherited and end costly asylum hotels”.
In a message to Reform UK, which has promised mass deportations, and the Tories, who want to revive the Rwanda scheme, Ms Cooper will say: “These are complex challenges, and they require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can’t be delivered.”
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The town at boiling point over migration
While the home secretary will look back at the UK’s “proud record of giving sanctuary to those fleeing persecution”, she will argue the system “needs to be properly controlled and managed, so the rules are respected and enforced, and so governments, not criminal gangs, decide who comes to the UK”.
She will also give further details around measures announced over the summer, including the UK’s landmark returns deal with France, and update MPs on reforms to the asylum appeals process.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp dismissed Ms Cooper’s intervention as a “desperate distraction tactic”, reiterating record levels of illegal Channel crossings, the rise in the use of asylum hotels and the highest number of asylum claims in history in Labour’s first year.
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Richard Tice reveals how navy would deal with small boats
Sir Keir Starmer too, says he intends to “deliver change,” using a column in Monday’s Mirror to criticise the Tories and Reform UK for whipping up migrant hatred.
And the prime minister isn’t the only one to hit out at Reform UK’s flagship immigration plan, with the Archbishop of York accusing it of being an “isolationist, short-term kneejerk” approach, with no “long-term solutions”.
In response, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the archbishop was “wrong” in his criticism.
Anti-asylum demonstrators in Epping, Essex. Pic: PA
Mr Tice, who is the MP for Boston and Skegness, said he was a Christian who “enjoys” the church – but that the “role of the archbishop is not actually to interfere with international migration policies”.
Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal will hand down its full written judgment in the Bell Hotel case today, which saw Epping Forest District Council fail in an attempt to stop asylum seekers from being put up there.
Protests continued in Epping on Sunday night, with police arresting three people.
An anti-asylum demonstration also took place in Canary Wharf on Sunday, which saw a police officer punched in the face and in a separate incident, a child potentially affected by synthetic pepper spray.
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