Between June 10 and 13, Professor Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’s caretaker government, will arrive in the United Kingdom on a mission that blends global recognition with high-stakes diplomacy.

In a rare gesture, King Charles III is set to personally confer on him the inaugural King Charles III Harmony Award at a ceremony in St James’s Palace–an honor reserved for those whose life's work has advanced peace, sustainability, and harmony between people and the planet.

The visit also includes an audience with the King at Buckingham Palace and meetings with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

On paper, this should be a moment of celebration–not just for Yunus, but for Bangladesh. A statesman invited to the royal court, recognized for his decades of service to the world's poor and marginalized, and engaging the UK leadership on serious matters like the recovery of looted Bangladeshi funds hidden in British financial institutions.

But while Britain rolls out the red carpet, a darker drama is unfolding somewhere else.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and heir to the long-entrenched Awami League machine, is reportedly en route to London in what looks like a coordinated effort to sabotage the trip, loyalists of the former regime are being flown in from across Europe for black-flag protests.

They are paid-for performances of political spite, choreographed by a family still clinging to a narrative of victimhood and vengeance.

The dysfunction doesn’t stop there. Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP and niece of Sheikh Hasina, weighed in last week with a tone-deaf invitation to Yunus for tea at the House of Commons–purportedly to “clear up” corruption allegations lodged against her by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission.

The letter, posted publicly, was informal to the point of embarrassment: no reference to protocol, no acknowledgment of Yunus’s current role as Chief Adviser, and certainly no indication of seriousness.

If the letter was an olive branch, it came with thorns. Hours later, her cousin Joy issued a Facebook broadside warning the UK Prime Minister not to meet with Yunus, labeling him a “dictator” and vowing street protests. Tulip followed with a sarcastic tweet daring Yunus to “meet me in Parliament if you’re serious about the truth.”

One family, multiple scripts

At first glance, this might look like an awkwardly managed family squabble playing out on an international stage. But the contradictions on display are more than just tonal–they reveal the cynical theatre behind the Awami League’s current messaging.

Tulip Siddiq’s sudden outreach to Professor Yunus directly contradicts the very position her aunt’s party has adopted since its fall from power: complete refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the interim government.

While her cousin prepares to stage protests branding Yunus a dictator, Tulip extends an informal invitation for tea–as if diplomatic reconciliation were a casual misunderstanding best resolved over biscuits in Westminster.

Either she’s freelancing wildly, or she’s been enlisted in a calculated attempt to recast her public image–pivoting from accused beneficiary of state corruption to misunderstood niece bravely reaching across the aisle.

The illusion didn’t hold for long. Asked about the correspondence, Chief Adviser's Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam made clear that no official letter had been received.

However, the public performance, complete with social media posts and theatrical timing, suggests this was less about resolving anything and more about branding Tulip as a victim of political vendetta.

Even if one were to grant her the benefit of the doubt, the approach reeks of entitlement. The House of Commons is not a private dispute resolution forum. Nor is it appropriate protocol for a sitting MP–especially one implicated in ongoing investigations–to summon a visiting foreign dignitary for a personal meeting outside of any official diplomatic channel.

Taken together with her cousin’s vitriolic social media outbursts, Tulip’s gambit reveals the enduring pathology of dynastic politics. The Awami League’s ruling family has long operated on the belief that public institutions exist to serve their private interests.

In Tulip’s world, there was no need to contact the Foreign Ministry, the Bangladeshi High Commission, or any legal intermediary. She wrote straight to the man at the top. Because in the logic of political royalty, only the top matters.

The rest of the system–the judiciary, the public, the very idea of due process–is just background noise.

The “no property” lie falls apart

Tulip Siddiq insists she has “no property” or financial interests in Bangladesh. But the documents tell a different story. The Anti-Corruption Commission has publicly listed her as a co-owner–alongside her mother, her siblings, and her aunt Sheikh Hasina–of prime land in Purbachal’s ultra-exclusive zone, and residential assets in Gulshan, Dhaka’s most elite enclave.

These holdings require a Bangladeshi National ID, a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and legal proof of citizenship. More telling is her longtime beneficiary status under the 2009 Family Members Security Act, which grants government-funded Special Security Forces (SSF) protection to descendants of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Tulip never declined this benefit, nor disavowed the privilege that comes with it. In fact, she quietly enjoyed the full architecture of Bangladeshi state power–even while claiming, for British audiences, to be little more than a distant niece with no real ties.

It raises the obvious question: how does someone so allegedly removed from Bangladesh continue to receive elite security protection, own property requiring state clearance, and stay acutely informed about legal proceedings?

Her claim that court notices were sent to “random addresses” is almost comical–those addresses are family homes where she has been known, housed, and protected. Legal correspondence doesn’t float to strangers–it lands where institutional ties remain intact.

There’s also a diplomatic dimension the British government cannot ignore. Professor Yunus is in the UK not as a private citizen, but as a guest of the British Crown–a Nobel Peace Laureate invited by King Charles III and recognized by international partners as the transitional leader of Bangladesh.

To incite protests, peddle disinformation, or politicize this visit through tweets and side-door media ambushes is not just bad form–it veers dangerously close to undermining a visiting head of government on British soil.

And that places the UK Parliament in an uncomfortable position. One of its own MPs appears to be using the trappings of elected office to wage a personal and political campaign against a foreign leader honored by the British monarchy.

Tulip wants the West to forget her complicity: her silence during years of enforced disappearances, her quiet ascent through bloodline politics, her material gains behind the veil of privilege. But history isn’t in the mood to forget. It has begun to document.

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Omar Faris is a writer and an analyst