Palantir Contracts Have Turned into ‘Unacceptable Period of Weakness,’ UK Political Leaders Warn

A group of two UK politicians are sounding the alarm in the country agreement is a data analytics company Palantir.

In a report published on Tuesday, 11 members of the Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee of the Parliament warned that relying on Palantir’s technology “represents an unacceptable weakness” that could give the company more leverage in future negotiations.

“We know that with the closure of retailers, over time, we will have more expensive and worse jobs,” Dame Chi Onwurah, the committee’s chairperson and member of Parliament, tells WIRED. “It is a trap that we must avoid.”

In extreme cases, a deeply entrenched trader may threaten to shut down as a way to enforce his will, Onwurah believes. “This could stop people’s jobs and our economy,” he says. “It’s a big threat.”

Although the committee says its objections to Palantir are not ideological, the report also describes “clear disagreements with UK policy.” It refers to politically charged comments by Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel – who in 2023 described the British public’s love for the NHS as “Stockholm syndrome“—and a 22-point manifesto based on CEO Alex Karp’s latest book, which advocates US engagement and interests.

“We have important vendors saying that they will use the technology according to their political mission,” says Onwurah. “If what the UK is trying to do in our NHS or our defense doesn’t match Palantir’s political agenda, we can’t trust them as a supplier.”

To mitigate these risks, the committee recommended that the National Health Service, one of Palantir’s partners in the UK, introduce a clause in its contract next February that would terminate the relationship early.

The UK government began using Palantir’s technology in 2020 as it struggled map the spread of the Covid-19 virus and medical procedures the whole world. Since then, Palantir and its partners have won contracts totaling $750 million and NHS and Ministry of Defenseamong others. The company has proven its ability to “innovate and solve problems quickly” in the UK government.

The report shows similar reliance on US cloud providers Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, and Fujitsu, a Japanese company at the center of Post Office Horizon scandal. But “Palantir gives us serious concern,” the committee wrote.

Palantir did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The relationship has attracted increased scrutiny of late over the company’s work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as the US and Israeli military. The manifesto based on Karp’s book raised the company’s political concerns.

“They’re not a company that should be anywhere near the British public sector,” said Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at Foxglove, a non-profit organization that previously urged the NHS to end its partnership with Palantir. “Do you want to give this kind of company – with this kind of vision and vision – such a big stake in the UK that it would be hard to get rid of?”

Appearing before the committee in July last yearLouis Mosley, who heads Palantir’s European business, distanced the company from Thiel’s comments about the NHS. Palantir’s mission is to “help democratically elected governments achieve their mandates,” he said. “We represent a variety of political views and do not take political positions as a company.”