Thread by @EuropeanPowell

⚠️WARNING⚠️
The head of the UK branch of Palantir is Louis Mosley, who is the grandson of the renowned British fascist Oswold Mosley.
Louis Mosley is quoted as saying that Palantir's strategy for entry into the British health industry was to "Buy our way in" by acquiring smaller rival companies with existing relationships with the NHS in order to "take a lot of ground and take down a lot of political resistance"
The fact that Palantir has 24 contracts with UK public institutions including the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the police force, the Cabinet Office, and the DLUHC should be ringing alarm bells.
Quotes from Peter Thiel "The NHS makes people sick" and "I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible"
It was the Tories who arranged 23 of the Palantir contracts, the most recent contract given to Palantir was to Coventry City Council by Keir Starmer in April 2025.
Keir Starmer will continue handing out Palantir contracts to councils, as one by one, councils are collapsing due to insufficient funding and poor management. This is part and parcel of how predatory corporations are making serious incursions into the public sector.
Palantir is a key component of the mass privatisation of infrastructure currently accelerating at pace post-Brexit.

Lack of Transparency in Procurement
Many contracts were awarded without competition, with some being "handed over in secret" until transparency organisations forced publication.
Even now, the UK government is withholding details of Palantir contracts, making it difficult for the public to understand the full scope.

"Foot in the Door" Strategy
Palantir has used a strategy of offering services "for a nominal fee of £1" during crises like the pandemic, then subsequently being awarded much larger contracts without competition.
This approach makes their expansion less visible initially.

Complex Procurement Processes
The contracts are spread across different departments and institutions, making it harder to see the overall pattern. They span healthcare, immigration, defense, and local government - areas that don't typically receive unified media coverage.

Limited Media Coverage
While organisations like openDemocracy, Good Law Project, and Corporate Watch have investigated these contracts extensively, mainstream media coverage has been more sporadic. The technical nature of data analytics contracts also makes them less newsworthy than more tangible government spending.

Gradual Expansion Rather than one large, headline-grabbing contract, Palantir has built its UK presence incrementally across multiple years and departments, making the cumulative effect less obvious to casual observers.
The fact that "privacy campaigners warn that a company that is helping Trump's migrant deportations should not have access to sensitive UK health data" suggests there is growing awareness and concern, but it hasn't yet translated into widespread public knowledge.

There are legitimate concerns about the legality of how some Palantir contracts were awarded. Several legal challenges have been mounted:
Procurement Rule Violations
Palantir's "free trial period" strategy has been criticized as "contrary to the principles of public procurement." This approach, offering services for £1 during emergencies then securing larger contracts without competition potentially circumvents proper tendering processes.

Active Legal Challenges
The Good Law Project has sent pre-action letters challenging the NHS Federated Data Platform agreement and launched legal proceedings against NHS England over heavily redacted contract details.
They argue that "Government policy requires public bodies to give reasons when contracts are redacted, but despite the massive scale of the redactions in Palantir's contract no reasons have been given."

Procedural Concerns
There are questions about how NHS England "signed a contract that isn't even finished" and then continued negotiating afterward, which raises procedural questions about proper contract execution.
Historical Precedent
Previous legal challenges in 2020 successfully forced the government to publish contracts, with courts recognising the public's right to know about this "unprecedented transfer of health data assets to tech corporations."

unroll @threadreaderapp