U.K. minister quits amid questions over links to ousted Bangladeshi leader
Britain’s anti-corruption minister resigned on Tuesday, bowing to mounting pressure over her links to her aunt, ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
LONDON — Britain’s anti-corruption minister resigned on Tuesday, bowing to mounting pressure over her links to her aunt, ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Tulip Siddiq said that she had been cleared of wrongdoing but was quitting as economic secretary to the Treasury because the issue was becoming “a distraction from the work of the government.”
Siddiq, 42, is a former local councilor who was elected lawmaker for a north London district in 2015. She was appointed to the government after Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left Labour Party won a landslide election victory in July.
Starmer has been under growing pressure to remove Siddiq from her post since she referred herself to the government’s ethics watchdog in early January following reports that she lived in London properties linked to her aunt.
Starmer said he was sad to see Siddiq go, adding in a letter that the watchdog — independent adviser on ministerial interests Laurie Magnus — “has assured me he found no breach of the Ministerial Code and no evidence of financial improprieties on your part.”
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