Tulip Siddiq

Tulip Rizwana Siddiq, (টিউলিপ রেজওয়ানা সিদ্দীক; born 16 September 1982) is a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician. She was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Hampstead and Kilburn at the 2015 general election. She is vice-chairwoman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism and a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. She was previously a councillor for Regent's Park and Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities in Camden Council.

Early life
Siddiq was born in St Helier Hospital in St Helier, London. From the age of five, she spent her childhood in Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Singapore and Spain.

Siddiq grew up in Hampstead, was raised in a Muslim household and has said that her "family embraced multicultural Britain". In the heart of North London's Jewish community, she attended seder with neighbours and went to Limmud with friends. As a child, she met Nelson Mandela and was a guest at the White House.

Siddiq is the eldest daughter and second eldest among three children of Shafiq Siddiq, who was an academic and university economics professor before a stroke left him disabled, and Sheikh Rehana, who gained political asylum as a teenager. They met when Shafiq Siddiq was studying for a PhD and they married in Kilburn in 1970. Her maternal grandfather is Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founding father and the first President of Bangladesh. Her mother's elder sister is Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina. She has an elder brother, Radwan "Bobby" Mujib (who lives in Bangladesh), and a younger sister, Rupi.

In 1975, Bangladesh Army soldiers stormed Siddiq's mother's home in Bangladesh and assassinated Siddiq's grandfather, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, alongside his three sons and 16 other members of his family in a military coup. Siddiq's mother and aunt survived as they were on holiday in Germany at the time.

In 1998, at the age of 15, she moved to North London. She gained four A-levels, before completing her undergraduate degree in English Literature at University College London and then a master's degree at King's College London. In September 2011, she completed a second master's degree in Politics, Policy and Government, writing her dissertation on Local Government also at King's College London.

Early political career
At the age of 16, Siddiq joined the Labour Party. She has worked for Amnesty International, the Greater London Authority, political consultancy at Philip Gould Associates, Save the Children, and Brunswick, where she worked on corporate social responsibilities initiatives for major British manufacturers, as well as MPs Oona King, Sadiq Khan and Harry Cohen. Siddiq worked on Ed Miliband's campaign to be leader of the Labour Party, and as a special advisor to Tessa Jowell. She has campaigned for political parties internationally, and in 2008, she campaigned for Barack Obama in the U.S.

In a 2006 by-election, Siddiq stood for Camden Council but did not win. It was a safe Liberal Democrats seat which had been held by them for 25 years. In May 2010, in the Camden election, Siddiq became the first Bengali female councillor in Camden Council, where she was Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities until May 2014.

In July 2013, Siddiq was selected as the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in the 2015 general election, following a vote by local party members,      despite being the victim of a smear campaign.

During 2013 and 2014, after being selected as Labour candidate, she campaigned on various topics, including against the proposed high-speed railway expansion High Speed 2, and in opposition to high pay day lender charges on Kilburn High Road. She has also campaigned in support of local services, such as to keep Belsize Fire Station open, to improve disabled access at West Hampstead tube station and to save the Swiss Cottage post office.

Parliamentary career
In the 2015 general election, Siddiq held the Hampstead and Kilburn seat with 23,977 votes, with a turnout of 67.3%. The seat was previously held by Glenda Jackson. The seat had previously been the second tightest in the country after Jackson retained the seat by just 42 votes in 2010 and was billed in 2015 as the UK's most marginal general election contest.

In June 2015, Siddiq was appointed a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism. She is also a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. In the same month, she was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election, although she later supported Andy Burnham. Siddiq is a member of the Labour Friends of Israel.

In September 2015, Siddiq along with Keir Starmer and Catherine West wrote a letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron seeking urgent action to address the refugee crisis due to the Syrian Civil War. In the same month, she was appointed Permanent Private Secretary to the Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, Michael Dugher.

In November 2015, she campaigned against changes to junior doctor contracts. In the same month, Siddiq's maiden speech in Parliament was judged one of the top seven from 2015's intake of MPs by the BBC.

In October 2016, she was appointed as Shadow Education Minister in the Labour Party's frontbench in Parliament, taking on the childcare and early years education brief and working with Shadow Secretary of State for Education Angela Rayner.

In January 2017, she resigned from the Labour frontbench over Labour's three-line whip to vote for triggering Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. Siddiq stated that because around 75% of her Hampstead and Kilburn constituency voted to remain in the European Union as one of the top 10 remain areas, she could not "reconcile" her position. Siddiq won an endorsement from Camden for Europe, Open Britain and Best for Britain, due to her decision to vote against Article 50. In June 2017, in the general election, Siddiq retained her seat with an increased majority of 15,560.

In August 2017, Siddiq called for businesses to "address imbalance" in the employment of BAME individuals to improve the diversity of its workforce.

In September 2017, Siddiq was appointed as Chair of the new Childcare and Early Education All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). In the same month, Siddiq wrote to the Home Office to ask for children's passports to be amended to contain both their parents' names to avoid confusion at airports and borders. Siddiq had been stopped with her daughter at UK border control whilst returning from a family holiday until her husband joined them, because she did not have the same surname in her passport as her child.

In November 2017, whilst campaigning for the release of her constituent, the British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is detained in Iran, she was asked by Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News and ITN about using her family ties to the Bangladeshi government, led by her aunt, in order to liberate British Bangladeshi barrister, Ahmad bin Quasem who is thought to have been abducted by state security forces in Bangladesh. The programme's editor, Ben de Pear, complained about Siddiq's "threatening behaviour" to a pregnant producer, while Siddiq complained to the police about her interlocutors. During the encounter, she also said "Are you implying that I'm a Bangladeshi politician?", appearing to deny any involvement in Bangladeshi politics, despite the fact her website had described her as a "spokesperson for the Awami League" prior to her election to parliament in 2015. She had also travelled to Russia with her aunt and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for a public meeting with President Vladimir Putin. She later apologised in a statement to the producer, Daisy Ayliffe, for the offence caused.

In May 2018, Siddiq supported an equal pay campaign aimed at building pressure on employers. In the same month, Siddiq described the actions of the Israeli military during demonstrations on the Gaza border as "unjustified" and "inhumane". She said: "I condemn without reservation these violations of international law and human rights by Israel. The international community should immediately act together to demand an end to the senseless killing, the bullets and the tear gas, and to urge a halt to the bloodshed." She added: "The protest has been twofold - to highlight the shocking conditions which Palestinians are forced to live in and to demand their right to return to their homes. These issues should not be forgotten in the carnage which is now unfolding." Later in the month, she revealed that "I get stopped all the time, people [Parliament authorities] asking for my pass or saying that this area is just for MPs." Furthermore, Huq and Tulip Siddiq are mistaken for one another, though they do not look alike.

Other activities
Siddiq was a board member of West Euston Partnership and is governor of the Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust. She served as national BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) Officer for Young Labour and Women's Officer for London Young Labour. She is an executive board member of Unite the Union, a member of the Co-operative Party, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is also a member of the Commonwealth Journalists Association (UK). In July 2011, she joined Brunswick Group LLP as an Account Director. She also oversaw Camden's engagement with the 2012 London Olympics, which saw the launch of three legacy schemes to encourage more physical activities, Camden Sports Academy, School and Community Games, and Pro-Active Ambassadors.

Siddiq served two years as a school governor at Beckford Primary School and Richard Cobden Primary School and is a current governor at the Working Men's College in Camden. As of January 2014, Siddiq supports a number of organisations in Hampstead and Kilburn, including school governor roles at Emmanuel Primary School and Granville Plus Nursery as well as being a trustee of the Camden Arts Centre. She has also written for Hampstead and Highgate Express as a foreign correspondent, primarily covering the U.S. elections.

Recognition
In January 2013, Siddiq was named in the "British Bangladeshi Power & Inspiration 100". In December 2014, she was named by The Guardian as "one to watch" in British politics. In April 2015, The Sunday Times described her as one of the "rising stars" of the Labour Party.

Personal life
Siddiq is a Muslim, has referred to herself as a socialist and has stated opposition to the Iraq War. Siddiq's father suffered a stroke, which left him disabled and unable to speak for five years, and he now uses a wheelchair. She has cited the NHS and the care her disabled father received as the reason why she joined the Labour Party. She has identified Barbara Castle as her political heroine. Siddiq has described her mother and maternal aunt as "two very strong feminists".

In 2013, Siddiq married Christian William St John Percy (born 1984), who is a Cambridge-educated company director and strategy consultant with a background in the British civil service. The wedding reception was held a few months later on 7 July in West Ham, London. Siddiq lives in a flat on Finchley Road, West Hampstead, London with her husband. In November 2015, it was confirmed Siddiq was five months pregnant and expecting a daughter in April 2016. On 8 April 2016, Siddiq gave birth to a girl, Azalea Joy, at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Siddiq returned to work nine weeks after an emergency caesarean section, before a 40-hour long labour after which she caught an infection and so did her daughter. Siddiq later developed a serious case of mastitis because she was overworked and exhausted from going back to work early.

Siddiq's daughter attends a Jewish nursery. Since becoming an MP, Siddiq has spoken at Limmud and attends synagogue events.