LONDON — Britain’s government is facing intensifying pressure over the role played by U.S. tech company Palantir in key state services — with opponents spying a potential political win.
Campaigners have protested Palantir’s involvement in the U.K. public sector before, largely due to its billionaire founder Peter Thiel and its work with U.S. immigration agency ICE.
The data analytics firm’s British contracts include a £330 million deal to provide a data platform for the National Health Service and a £240 million contract directly awarded by the Ministry of Defence without competition late last year.
Now the company’s ties to Peter Mandelson, the U.K.’s former U.S. ambassador under fire over links to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, have handed politicians on the left and right fresh ammunition. Mandelson has said he “deeply regrets” his association with Epstein and denies wrongdoing.
Palantir was a client of Global Counsel, the lobbying company Mandelson co-founded and held shares in until earlier this month. Mandelson arranged for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to visit Palantir’s offices in Washington during his time as ambassador.
Critics — including some Labour MPs — see that as a sign the governing party has been too close to the tech giant, and are seeking to squeeze some political capital out of the situation. They want to force a rethink of the U.K. government’s relationship with the company, and with U.S. tech firms more broadly.
Green Party MP Sian Berry said the controversy has alerted the public to the government’s “intimacy with billionaires” and raised questions about the U.K.’s digital sovereignty. “I think there’s a real place in the wider, more mainstream political conversation for these issues now than there’s been in a while,” she told POLITICO.
Punching the bruise
Britain’s reliance on big U.S. tech firms has long exercised campaigners, who can also point to President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and stated aspirations to annex Greenland as a sign Britain needs to bolster its independence.
Berry said the U.K. had “sleepwalked into a situation that carries enormous risk” by relying on U.S. tech companies. One recent survey of U.K. government agencies found that all respondents relied on one of two American cloud providers.
Palantir’s growing presence across U.K. public services encapsulates those risks, Berry argued.
Her boss, Green Party leader Zack Polanski, has said the “Trump-supporting military surveillance outfit has no place” in the NHS, and last month urged U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting to cancel Palantir’s contracts.
In turn, Palantir argues the deal is delivering benefits to patients — and earning the state £150 million in annual savings.
While describing Britain’s reliance on U.S. technologies as a systemic and long-standing problem, Berry told POLITICO that scrutiny of Palantir’s ties to Mandelson means people are “now much more likely to worry” about the risk of deals for Palantir and other U.S. tech firms.
“I think it’s a genuine opportunity to get people to look again” at alternatives, she said. “It’s got a bit more salient now.”
Eyeing an opening
The Greens and Lib Dems have called for the government to publish a comprehensive “digital sovereignty strategy” in a bid to reduce the U.K.’s dependence on U.S. tech, with backing from several left-wing Labour MPs and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party.
Tim Bierley, campaigns and advocacy manager at non-profit Global Justice Now, said fresh questions about Mandelson and Palantir had crystalized public doubt about the value of U.S. tech investment in the U.K.
Some 63 percent of U.K. voters support limiting foreign ownership of critical U.K. digital infrastructure, according to a poll carried out by Focaldata last year.
Starmer’s Labour government has struck deals with several U.S. artificial intelligence companies in a bid to reform its public services and boost growth. It has also welcomed billions of dollars of U.S. tech investment, including as part of a U.K.-U.S. Tech Prosperity Deal that Mandelson himself helped promote as ambassador. The deal has since been frozen amid broader trade tensions.
Global Justice Now and 16 other organizations wrote to Starmer last week saying there was an “urgent need” to reconsider whether deals with U.S. tech companies struck during Mandelson’s tenure as ambassador were in the British public interest.
Ministers have committed to “full transparency” over Mandelson’s time as ambassador and say he had no role in the decision to award the MoD contract to Palantir, which they argued will ensure the U.K.’s armed forces have access to the most advanced capabilities.
Palantir said it does not control the data used on its systems, which it calls a U.K. “sovereign capability.” The PM’s visit to its offices last year was “a typical government visit to a business, involving a media photocall,” a Palantir spokesperson said.
Global Counsel, which announced Thursday it is closing after losing a host of clients, said: “While today’s Global Counsel has no connection with Peter Mandelson, his role as a co-founder and his conduct, particularly in its early years, has indelibly colored the way Global Counsel is seen in the outside world.”
Cross-party concern
It’s not just parties on the left that are spotting a vulnerability.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch told the Financial Times this month that Mandelson’s interactions with Palantir need “to be looked at very, very closely” — while noting that her issue is “not with Palantir” itself.
The party’s shadow tech secretary, Julia Lopez, has meanwhile accused the government of failing to recognize “the reality of hard power and the need to protect our sovereign interests” when it comes to tech policy.
The House of Commons’ Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has also increased its scrutiny of the government’s approach to digital sovereignty amid the increased attention on Palantir.
Digital Government Minister Ian Murray told MPs this month that all procurement decisions are assessed for their impact on the U.K.’s sovereignty — though he cautioned that the concept is “complex.”
Committee chair and Labour MP Chi Onwurah told POLITICO that ministers must get a grip on the issue. “I urge them to clarify their definition [of sovereignty], which would help us understand the basis for procurement decisions, including recent contracts awarded to Palantir,” she said.
There are signs the government sees Palantir and other U.S. tech firms as a political liability. Ministers were nowhere to be seen at a Palantir event in central London last week “celebrating the next chapter” of its partnership with the MoD.
Ministers have also emphasized the need for “agency” to impose “British values” over how new technologies impact the U.K., pointing to how they “stood up to” Elon Musk’s Grok over the creation of sexualized deepfake images.
A friend in Farage?
Coming down harder on Palantir could also help distance Labour from opposition to its right.
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage’s party has held back from criticizing the government’s contracts with Palantir, which recently hired one of Farage’s former aides.
James Orr, a philosopher who is close to Palantir co-founder Thiel, was also recently promoted to the right-wing populist party’s head of policy. Bloomberg reported that Farage was the only U.K. politician to attend a Palantir event in Davos in January.
Speaking on Monday, Farage even suggested the company should be complimented for ruling out working on the government’s controversial digital ID plans, which he opposes.
“Maybe there are some nice things we ought to be saying about Palantir,” Farage said.
Noah Keate and Mizy Clifton contributed additional reporting for this story.
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