UK Leaders Embrace Palantir Deals Amid Questions Over Value and Lock-In
Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Palantir’s Washington showroom in early 2025, after which the UK awarded the firm a £240 million contract that critics say is costly and hard to exit.
In February 2025, Keir Starmer travelled to Washington, met President Donald Trump, and then visited a Palantir Technologies showroom set up by Peter Mandelson, the UK ambassador to the US. The visit, captured on video, showed Starmer alongside US military staff and Palantir chief Alex Karp examining an attack drone. Within weeks the UK awarded Palantir a £240 million contract, prompting scrutiny from groups like the Good Law Project and Foxglove.
Critics point to the NHS’s Federated Data Platform, built by Palantir, as slow, unreliable, and difficult to replace without losing data. The firm’s approach, described as theatrical and militaristic, aims to convince clients they are indispensable, creating a subscription model that locks governments into costly, proprietary systems. The piece highlights similar concerns in other European nations and questions why successive British administrations continue to spend heavily on a vendor whose claimed benefits are disputed.
Why it matters
The story shows how costly, hard-to-replace tech contracts can limit public-sector flexibility and waste taxpayer money.
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