Tulip Siddiq faces calls to resign after Bangladesh leader’s remarks

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UK Cities Minister Tulip Siddique is under renewed pressure to resign, with opposition leaders calling for her sacking after she became embroiled in a property scandal involving the ousted government of Bangladesh.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer Siddique, whose role covers anti-corruption policy, should be sacked after allegations he benefited from assets linked to the Awami League, the party led by his aunt Sheikh Hasina. Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

“It’s time for Keir Starmer to sack Tulip Siddique,” Badenoch said in a Posted on X Saturday night. “The Prime Minister tried to make a big deal of his commitment to quality and integrity. . . His weak lead towards Siddiq indicates that he is not as concerned with integrity as he claims.

Earlier this week, Siddiq referred himself to Sir Laurie Magnus, the government’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, following a Financial Times investigation. Two bedroom flats are offered In the early 2000s in King’s Cross, London by a man with ties to the Awami League.

A cabinet minister suggested on Sunday that Siddique would be sacked if the probe found any wrongdoing. “The investigation has to go through,” Science Minister Peter Kyle told Sky’s Trevor Phillips.

“I think that’s the right way forward. I am giving it all the space it needs. I will listen for results, as will the Prime Minister.

“It will be a working process, and its results will be held up by the Prime Minister and this government, in stark contrast to what we have done in the past.”

Siddiqui insisted he had done nothing wrong and Number 10 insiders said they had so far seen no evidence of the minister breaching the code.

The city minister has also lived in several other properties associated with the former Awami League regime Crashed last summer Following a student-led protest that was initially met with violent repression by security forces that left hundreds of civilians dead.

Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist and Bangladesh’s interim leader, said in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper that if the minister is found to have benefited from “common robbery”, the property used by Siddiq should be returned.

“He became the anti-corruption minister and defended himself [over the London properties],” he said. “Maybe you didn’t realize it, but now you do. You say: ‘Sorry, I didn’t know that [at] At that time I apologized to the public that I had done it and that I was resigning.’ He’s not saying that. He is protecting himself.”

Siddiq was Named in a search After the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission last month accused Sheikh Hasina’s political rival Siddique and her family of taking cuts from a Russian-backed nuclear power project, they denied it.

After taking power in August, Bangladesh’s interim government appointed Ahsan Mansour, a former IMF official, to head the country’s central bank and began recovering billions of dollars, which the country’s new leaders demanded had been taken out of the banking system and sent abroad.

In an interview in October, Mansoor told FT An estimated Tk2tn ($16.7bn) has been smuggled out of the country following the forced takeover of leading banks by people linked to Awami League using methods such as fake loans and inflating import invoices.

Bangladesh’s Financial Intelligence Unit issued the directive to the country’s banks last week To provide transaction details For all accounts linked to Siddiq and his family, according to people familiar with the matter.

A friend of Siddique said he only had a UK bank account and no overseas accounts.

Downing Street pointed to Starmer’s comments earlier this week when he said he had confidence in Siddiqui and that he had “done absolutely the right thing by referring himself to the independent adviser”.