As Andy Burnham prepares to take office as Britain’s next prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, one of his first major policy shifts is set to target a controversial contract between the National Health Service and American technology and data surveillance firm Palantir, multiple sources confirm.
Per reporting from The Telegraph, Burnham’s incoming administration is currently conducting a full review of the UK government’s existing artificial intelligence strategy, a process that is expected to result in Palantir being dropped from its NHS contract. The current £330 million seven-year deal between Palantir and the NHS has only been active for two years, leaving five years remaining on the original agreement if it is not terminated early.
Palantir’s footprint across UK public institutions extends far beyond the health service. The firm already holds a £240 million contract with the UK Ministry of Defence, a £15 million agreement tied to Britain’s nuclear deterrent program, and at least 34 additional uncovered contracts across sectors including law enforcement, child social care, refugee support services and environmental regulation. Many of these agreements have been marked by a lack of public transparency around the scope of Palantir’s data access and work.
The push to oust Palantir from the NHS comes amid growing global outrage over the firm’s documented ties to military operations in Gaza. In January 2024, Palantir publicly announced a partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to deploy its technology to support so-called “war-related missions”, which include drone missile strikes targeting civilian areas in Gaza that have killed dozens of journalists and humanitarian aid workers. When confronted with accusations that Palantir’s technology enabled the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in April 2025, Palantir CEO Alex Karp responded by claiming the targets were “mostly terrorists, that’s true”.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said Karp’s comment confirms the firm has “executive-level knowledge and purpose vis-a-vis the unlawful use of force by Israel” in occupied Palestinian territories. Additional scrutiny has emerged after reports that the U.S. Pentagon is investigating whether Palantir’s AI-powered target identification system Maven was involved in a February 2025 U.S. “double-tap” missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed more than 170 people, the vast majority of whom were children.
Founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a controversial figure who once famously stated “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”, Palantir received partial funding from the Central Intelligence Agency at its launch. Thiel has also drawn fierce criticism in the UK for his previous comments attacking the National Health Service, claiming the beloved public institution “makes people sick” and framing British public support for the NHS as a case of “Stockholm syndrome”.
Burnham’s long-standing stance on Palantir predates his expected ascension to Downing Street: during his tenure as Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to 2025, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority never awarded any public contracts to the firm.
The proposal to terminate Palantir’s NHS contract has drawn immediate pushback from the Conservative opposition. Stuart Andrew, the Conservative shadow health secretary, argued that “if Andy Burnham tears up a programme that is improving patient care, he will have to explain why he chose politics over patients.” Andrew added that the NHS should leverage the best available technology to cut waiting lists, save lives and support frontline staff, and that barring leading global firms for political reasons would undermine confidence in NHS technology partnerships. “Patients should never pay the price for Labour’s political posturing. Lives are too important to be sacrificed for Andy Burnham’s political beliefs,” Andrew said.
Despite Conservative opposition, discontent with Palantir runs deep even within the Labour Party, and public opposition to the firm’s UK public sector contracts has grown steadily over the past year. Last month, a cross-party group of MPs issued a formal call for the incumbent government to activate the 2027 break clause in Palantir’s NHS contract and pursue either an in-house UK-built alternative or a domestic provider. The cross-party Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s report warned that growing reliance on Palantir across the UK public sector represents an “unacceptable point of weakness” that could leave critical public services “at the mercy” of foreign actors.
Palantir’s UK CEO Louis Mosley has pushed back against critics, accusing opponents of the contract of prioritizing “ideology over patient safety”. However, multiple NHS hospital trusts have already rejected Palantir’s technology, reporting that adopting it would cause them to “lose functionality rather than gain it”.
With the upcoming termination of Palantir’s NHS contract expected, scrutiny is now growing over the fate of the firm’s dozens of other public sector contracts across the UK. The debate over Palantir’s UK presence already made headlines in recent months, after London Mayor Sadiq Khan blocked a proposed £50 million contract between the Metropolitan Police and Palantir in May, citing a “clear and serious breach” of public procurement rules. Khan’s office noted that the deal would have left London police locked into a long-term relationship with Palantir without demonstrating value for taxpayer money, and Khan had previously stated he had “concerns about using public money to support firms who act contrary to London’s values”. Khan later reversed his veto after Palantir launched legal action against the decision, granting the firm a 12-month pilot project that could be extended.
This reporting was originally published by Middle East Eye, an independent outlet providing dedicated coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.