What’s up in Westminster?
EACH WEEK A FEMALE MP GIVES US THE INSIDER VIEW FROM PARLIAMENT
Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, on the challenges of being an MP with a baby and the plight of her constituent Nazanin, still in prison in Iran
Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe is in an Iranian jail for allegedly ‘plotting to topple the government’. I feel she’s been forgotten because there’s so much going on in politics right now. She’s three years into a five-year sentence but there’s also a threat of a second court case. It’s hard for her to stay positive when she’s being mentally tortured this way. Both Nazanin and her husband Richard, in London, are currently on hunger strike.
When he was Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson failed to formally call for Nazanin’s release, failed to call for diplomatic protection and failed to get consular access. He failed Nazanin. He repeated the Iranian regime’s propaganda – wrongly stating that Nazanin, who is British-iranian, was in Iran to train journalists, landing her in trouble. It was a horrific day for Nazanin. Boris made a huge error and he wasn’t sacked. He wasn’t fit to serve in that role and he’s not fit to run the country. I hope that when journalists interview him, they bring up Nazanin, as he shouldn’t be able to avoid scrutiny on this.
‘ Boris Johnson should have been sacked over Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe’
Brexit is all-consuming and ministers are giving everything to that because it’s the biggest issue of our generation. But it means other things are pushed down the pecking order. I have hundreds of constituents being pushed on to Universal Credit and the impact is severe. No one is talking about it.
In 2016, when I had my daughter Azalea by emergency C-section, I had to rush back to Parliament within six weeks. I had no choice; there were votes that were too important to miss. If I had missed the vote, the voting record would have said ‘absent’, not ‘just had a baby, trying to heal after having her abdominal muscles cut’. I got really ill because I went back so quickly.
I was preparing for a C-section with my second baby when I had to vote again. I was in a wheelchair and that made headlines. Afterwards, proxy voting was finally brought in. So with my son Raphael, life has been better. I’m still doing meetings and I take him along sometimes – maternity leave in Parliament doesn’t really happen. But I can nominate my whip to vote on my behalf, which is good for late-night votes.
I have a saint of a husband, he’s a feminist. After we had kids and I became an MP, he had to change careers – he used to work long hours but now he’s freelance, which makes a huge difference. He always does the nursery pick-up; I’m never out of work in time.