GoKawiilWhen Andy Burnham sat in his office in Manchester as the regional mayor, building an unrivaled power base on Britain’s left that ultimately catapulted him into the prime minister’s office, he did so in the only region of England that refused Palantir access to its data.
Now, as Burnham enters his first parliamentary session as British leader, Palantir could prove to be his first major test in office, as sources in Westminster tell WIRED the prime minister is under significant pressure from his new colleagues to break the company’s contentious contract with the National Health Service. The dispute could become the first major crisis of Burnham’s premiership, with those sources saying pressure is mounting on him to decide the future of Palantir’s growing role across the British state in the coming weeks.
Palantir currently holds contracts worth around £670m in the public sector, including major deals in health, defence, and policing. The largest—a £330m contract to manage healthcare data on the NHS Federated Data Platform—is the one Palantir opponents have opted to focus on. Reports circulated during Labour’s leadership election that Burnham would block Palantir, but they were swiftly cut down in follow-up reporting. Campaigners are now pushing for Burnham to use a break clause in Palantir’s contract with the NHS, which would see the deal end in 2027.
Burnham’s government and the Labour Party he leads are fractiously split on the issue. On one side, leading officials and parliamentary veterans argue cautiously in favor of the provider. On the other, Labour’s left-leaning grassroots and influential backbench MPs are pressuring the government to end the relationship, and in the process begin a huge schism with the company.
The government has so far obfuscated in response to an official petition asking for people to be able to opt out of Palantir’s FDP, after it got 10,000 signatures, saying only that the government would consider it in future policy making. A similar, non-official petition calls for Palantir to be removed from the NHS entirely and has already reached 177,000 signatures.
Growing public opposition to the company has put the government under real pressure to reduce Palantir’s role in the British state. WIRED spoke to three Whitehall sources who believe that, if the deal is to be broken, a decision to do so would need to be made in the next few weeks.
“Given the need to hire an alternate provider or make a decision to move the contract in house, any decision to tear up the contract would need to be done by the Autumn,” one Whitehall source tells WIRED. “Otherwise the government would risk botching any changeover.”
Many of the supporters who secured Burnham’s position in Downing Street are natural Palantir skeptics who come from the soft left. Intrinsically wary of privatisation, they want to see the firm’s role reduced or removed entirely from British politics.
Beyond the inner circle, opposition to Palantir is organised and loud, including many members of the Socialist Campaign Group, a faction within the Labour Party, who are on the whole more experienced MPs. Burnham supporters like Rachael Maskell have vocally opposed Palantir.
Maskell has highlighted her own work as an NHS clinician to justify her opposition to the company in a parliamentary debate in April. During a debate on Palantir’s FDP in February, she said: “This US spytech company is now deep into the data of our NHS and of course patients across the country. I know as a former clinician in the NHS, trust is key. If you do not have the confidence and trust of your patients, that results in people having worse health outcomes. So in the interest of our constituents' health, I urge the government to end this contract.”