Tulip Siddiq resigns: there’s no evidence she broke any rules, but here’s why she had to go anyway
Tulip Siddiq has resigned as anti-corruption minister after getting embroiled in a corruption scandal. A number of questions had been raised about her following an investigation by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission into the country’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was deposed last year and just happens to be Siddiq’s aunt.
The accusations centre on properties that it is alleged were made available or given to Siddiq directly or indirectly by people closely connected to the former regime. There are also questions about her attendance at an event in Moscow in 2013, before she was an MP and long before she became a government minister. The event was the opening of a power station now at the centre of the alleged embezzlement of £3.9 billion of infrastructure spending.
On January 14, a criminal case was reportedly filed by Bangladeshi authorities against Siddiq and other members of her family named in the investigation. A spokesperson for Siddiq has said: “No evidence has been presented for these allegations. Tulip has not been contacted by anyone on the matter and totally refutes the claims.”
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All of this led to Siddiq referring herself to the independent advisor for ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, at the end of last year. The independent adviser judges whether ministers have or have not broken the ministerial code – although the prime minister is the one who is the final arbiter. The independent adviser is, in other words, VAR. If the adviser thinks something looks dodgy, they send the prime minister to the screen to make the final call.
Under former prime minister Boris Johnson, two of these advisers resigned over his failure to act on findings over his own conduct and that of his home secretary, Priti Patel.
Magnus has found no evidence of misconduct on Siddiq’s part but said it was “regrettable” that Siddiq hadn’t been more live to the “potential reputational risks” of her family ties. The new criminal case against Siddiq doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on the ministerial code, given the filing is not UK-based.
However, looking at the ministerial code in detail, I think there were two specific areas which could be argued to merit further investigation. They centre on the so-called “general principle” and ministerial “procedure”.
The general principle underpinning a minister’s private interests is that they are “appointed to serve the public and must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise”.
The procedural underpinning is that they must give “a full declaration in writing of private interests which might be thought to give rise to a conflict, actual or perceived. This declaration should also cover interests of the minister’s spouse or partner and close family.”
Both of these point to a specific challenge for Siddiq in this case – the problem of perception.
The perils of perception
It’s hard to be a politician. Judgements about ethical behaviour are ever changing, and potential breaches are sometimes less about whether specific rules or laws have been broken and slightly more about vibes. As a senior government adviser told the Guardian last week: “It just doesn’t pass the smell test … even if she hasn’t done anything technically wrong, she’ll have to go.”
It might be the case that if she were in a different role (literally any other post in government that didn’t involve the word “anti-corruption”) Siddiq would have been fine. However, returning to vibes, Siddiq also had the problem of there simply being no good response as regards perception to questions of the provenance of the property in Kings Cross. Every explanation seemed to centre around an ignorance of who gifted it, how, and with what money.
Scandals in politics tend to catch the public imagination when they reinforce everyone’s worst perceptions of those who practice it. That they are out of touch, are unaware of what’s going on, that the rules don’t apply, or that they simply don’t get it. The “I’m not quite sure who bought me this flat” defence, falls well and truly into this category.
What now?
The Siddiq affair raises questions for a Labour government that can’t seem to control its own narrative. Why was Siddiq given an anti-corruption brief in the first place if these vulnerabilities were known about before Labour came to power? And why was this story been allowed to rumble on for over a week?
One of the more notable political stories from last year saw government insiders placing bets on the date of the election when they had privileged knowledge of Rishi Sunak’s plans to call a vote in July. This story was also typified by Sunak’s relative inaction over those in his circle at fault. Starmer, meanwhile, immediately suspended Labour candidate Kevin Craig when it was revealed that he, in the ultimate emotional hedge, bet on himself to lose in his constituency.
Starmer seems to have lost this ruthless streak now he is in office, and not necessarily to his benefit. Now, of course, you can say that Starmer was simply waiting on the outcome of Magnus’s inquiries. But given Siddiq’s specific brief, it at the very least made sense to ask her to step back from duties as soon as concerns were raised – especially when the ministerial code is written, at least partly, with public perceptions in mind.
It will also strengthen the calls for Labour to act on its manifesto commitment to “establish a new ethics and integrity commission”. There have been positive signs, here. Given the previous government’s relationship to standards, it should be welcomed that this one doesn’t seem to be actively antagonistic.
Starmer, for example, updated the ministerial code in November in a series of small but positive ways, strengthening certain reporting requirements around the receipt of gifts (following his own scandal last year).
That said, it’s unclear what happens next. There are good reasons to consolidate elements of the parliamentary standards ecosystem under the umbrella of a new ethics and integrity commission. But anything bigger than that risks doing more harm than good. Would a new commission, for example, then be in charge of the complex task of monitoring political financing and the corruption challenges these arrangements present?
Similarly, while VAR-esque arrangements of advisers on ministerial standards are about as popular as VAR itself – especially given the PM is the ultimate arbiter – what is the alternative? Many would feel (understandably) queasy about imbuing those who are not elected with powers to depose those who are. Significant safeguards would have to be put in place.
These are questions the government needs to grapple with. A core mission for Labour was to “restore confidence in government” and more widely restore British trust in politics. And to say it’s been a bumpy start, well that would be an understatement.
Sam Power receives funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and previously the Economic and Social Research Council.