The past week in Parliament has seen two major blows for AI-peddler Palantir. In a highly unusual Commons debate, MPs including Jeremy Corbyn laid bare the links that disgraced ambassador Peter Mandelson forged between the UK government and the authoritarian US tech company.
Mandelson lost his position after his ties to pedophile ringleader Jeffrey Epstein came to light. In a blow to PM Keir Starmer, it later transpired that Mandelson was handed the ambassadorial post in spite of failing his security vetting.
Meanwhile, an influential cross-party science committee condemned the public sector’s increasing reliance of Palantir’s AI as placing the UK “at the mercy” of foreign actors.
Palantir secret meetings
On 3 June, the Science, Information and Technology Select Committee warned that “Palantir’s increasing presence” in the public sector is an “unacceptable point of weakness”. Committee member and Lib Dem MP Martin Wrigley, told the Canaryhe was “delighted” with the conclusion:
We cannot continue to rely upon American technology […] especially when this one is a ‘software as a service’, so it’s entirely virtual – the NHS doesn’t have any hardware or any software,and they could pull it from underneath us at any time, at the whim of Donald Trump, or if there were any difficulty, or even if the contract stops abruptly. It could just go.
Wrigley also took the opportunity to reiterate a statement he made in the Commons debate on 3 June:
Yesterday, I got a letter from Louis Mosley [UK Palantir CEO] telling me that Peter Mandelson was not involved in Palantir’s defence contract in the UK. However, this is directly contradicted by a statement Jeremy Corbyn made in the house yesterday. I’m waiting for the evidence from Jeremy Corbyn, but of the two of them, I think I believe Jeremy Corbyn.
In the Commons, Wrigley mentioned that Palantir was all over the Mandelson files. That included:
a memo in which [Mandelson] tries to introduce Peter Thiel to No. 10 staff in June last year.
Minister for the cabinet Nick Thomas-Symonds denied that allegation strenuously. Rejecting the “suggestion that there is any wrongdoing” regarding the renewal of the Palantir contracts, he added:
I reject that absolutely. On the meeting between the Prime Minister and Peter Thiel, to be clear, that did not happen.
Note the slippage here. Wrigley talked about a meeting with Downing Street staff; Thomas-Symonds denied a meeting with Starmer. Those two things are not the same.
Debate ‘goes to the heart’ of UK politics
When it came time for Corbyn to make his speech, he began by lamenting the pitiful number of MPs attending. The debate, he acknowledged:
goes to the heart of so much about the political system of this country, and the power and influence of very wealthy people around the world.
He thanked Alex Davies-Jones for centering the victims of Epstein and his golden circle, before moving on the the central subject of Mandelson. He recalled a conversation with ex-Labour MP Tony Benn, who:
recognised that Mandelson’s whole objective was a political one: to take the Labour party away from its roots—away from its trade union connections and the working-class communities—and to turn it into a party of business.
Of course, there was no more pertinent illustration of Mandelson’s corrupt connections between business and government than Palantir.
‘Is that corrupt or what?’
Corbyn apparently came to the debate fully prepared. He launched into a play-by-play account of the Palantir scandal, beginning:
On 22 July 2025—less than a year ago—Peter Mandelson sent an email to Morgan McSweeney. The subject was a name: Peter Thiel [Palantir co-founder]. Mandelson wrote: “This celebrated techie is in London til Aug 9. I don’t know whether you have been approached already,” saying it would be good for the PM to meet him—so the ambassador to Washington starts trying to set up meetings with a tech entrepreneur who happens to be a friend and supporter of Donald Trump.
That damning email was from the second wave of the Mandelson files. It was one of many in which the disgraced ambassador “personally connected” Palantir to the UK Government.
The Islington MP also highlighted that Mandelson, at the time, still owned consulting company Global Counsel. In fact, he disregarded official advice to divest himself of his stake in the company in 2024. And, of course, Palantir was a Global Counsel client. As Corbyn put it:
Is that corrupt or what?
‘The mysterious meeting… nobody was at’
Corbyn also appeared to correct Thomas-Symonds on his little mistake regarding the alleged meeting:
We also know that the Prime Minister met representatives of the firm with Peter Mandelson in Washington. That was the mysterious meeting that apparently nobody was at, although it did happen; of which there is no record, and yet everybody was there; and during which no discussion went on because nothing was reported, and yet we all know that it took place because they were filmed going into it.
That non-meeting took place just two weeks after Mandelson started as ambassador. Likewise, mere days later, he attended the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington – a noted mixer for US congress members and weapons-tech specialists. Corbyn highlighted that:
the file notes that Mandelson was attending “with Louis”, who we understand to be Louis Mosley, the head of Palantir’s UK business. And so, this very tight connection of people goes on.
According to Ethan Shone of openDemocracy, Mandelson’s security “mitigations” forbade such one-to-one meetings with former clients like Palantir—a restriction which, like divestment from Global Counsel, the former ambassador assiduously ignored.
Is the UK so incapable?
Corbyn concluded by, in turn, reinforcing the science select committee’s message:
Are we seriously saying that we, as a society and country, are incapable of setting up our own technology arrangement? I do want data sharing within the NHS. […] I want that technology in place for A&E departments, but I do not want those records to be shared with a company that is busy advising Israel on how it will go about its bombardment of Gaza and trying to get hold of other contracts all around the world.
Sadly, Starmer’s government apparently believes this country truly is that incapable. This week alone, it announced yet another deal with Palantir – this time a £90,000 contract to manage a UK firearms database. The contract may be signed and sealed as early as 11 June.
Featured image via Getty/Eugene Gologursky
From Canary via This RSS Feed.