THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Bal Ram Sampla
Geopolitics
Taxpayers in Tower Hamlets have every right to be angry. One of their elected councillors, Sabina Khan, has been receiving over £20,000 annually in public funds while spending most of the past eight months not in East London serving her constituents, but thousands of miles away in Bangladesh pursuing her own political ambitions.
The numbers are stark. Khan receives £20,600 per year from the public purse: £11,898 as a basic councillor allowance and an additional £8,702 for her role as Scrutiny Lead for Resources. This is money meant to compensate elected representatives for their time, effort, and dedication to serving their local community.
Instead, Khan has been based in Sylhet, Bangladesh, where she is attempting to become a member of parliament representing the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. While Tower Hamlets residents deal with the cost-of-living crisis, housing issues, and the daily challenges of life in one of London’s most deprived boroughs, their councillor has been campaigning in another country entirely.
A Pattern of Absence
While Khan has attended at least one council meeting and reportedly joined some remotely or sent proxy representatives, the fundamental question remains: how can you properly represent your constituents when you’re not even in the country? Local councillors are meant to be accessible, present at community events, available for surgeries where residents can raise concerns, and actively engaged in the issues affecting their wards.
Being a councillor is not a remote job. It requires presence, availability, and genuine engagement with the community you serve.
The Resignation That Never Was
Perhaps most troubling is the confusion over Khan’s status. In November, she claimed to have stepped down from her position. Yet the council never received her resignation. She has apparently decided to remain in post until the May local elections, continuing to collect taxpayer money while her attention remains focused on Bangladeshi politics.
This is not how democratic accountability is supposed to work.
Where Is the Outrage?
Fellow councillors have called for her resignation. The council has stated that seeking political office abroad while serving as a councillor is “unacceptable.” The media has covered the story. But where is the sustained public pressure that would surely accompany such a blatant abuse of taxpayer funds in other circumstances?
Khan was elected as a Labour councillor before defecting to the Aspire party. Yet there has been little noise from the political establishment about this scandal. No high-profile demands for immediate resignation. No emergency motions. No public statements from party leaders condemning this misuse of public money.
A Matter of Basic Fairness
This is not a complex political issue. It’s simple: if you accept £20,000 of taxpayers’ money to represent a community, you should actually be present to do that job. If your priorities lie elsewhere—in pursuing political office in another country—then you should resign and allow someone who actually wants to serve Tower Hamlets to take your place.
The residents of Tower Hamlets deserve better. They deserve councillors who show up, who are accessible, who prioritize their needs above personal political ambitions halfway across the world. They deserve accountability for how their money is spent.
Every day that Khan remains in office while absent from the borough is another day that taxpayers are funding a representative who isn’t representing them. That’s not just poor value for money—it’s a betrayal of the basic covenant between elected officials and the people they serve.
The solution is straightforward: Sabina Khan should resign immediately. If she won’t do the right thing voluntarily, then the council and her party should use every mechanism at their disposal to remove her from office. And the public should demand nothing less.
Taxpayers deserve representatives who actually show up to do the job they’re being paid for. It’s really that simple.
References
1.https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-councillor-bangladesh-tower-hamlets-taxpayer-cash-2675066112
2.https://www.aol.co.uk/articles/london-councillor-paid-20-000-091524218.html
3.https://jihadwatch.org/2026/02/uk-councillor-receives-her-28000-salary-while-living-in-bangladesh
