UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham Faces Decision on £330 Million Palantir NHS Contract as Police Forces Drop Its Data Tool

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham built his political career in Manchester as the leader of the one English region that refused Palantir access to its data. Now, according to WIRED, he faces pressure from Labour's grassroots and backbench MPs to push the UK government to decide the fate of the US software firm's contracts across the British state. Whitehall sources say the clock is running out.

Palantir currently holds roughly £670m in UK public sector contracts, per WIRED, including a £330m deal to run the NHS Federated Data Platform and a £240m Ministry of Defence contract, according to The Guardian. The company also reports £427m in annual UK turnover.

Three Whitehall sources told WIRED that any decision to tear up the NHS deal would need to happen by autumn 2026 to avoid a botched changeover to a new provider. The NHS contract contains a break clause that would end the arrangement in 2027, and Labour's left-leaning grassroots and backbench MPs are pushing the government, with Burnham among the most vocal voices, to use it.

The pressure isn't just internal party politics. A non-official petition calling for Palantir's total removal from the NHS has collected 177,000 signatures. A separate official petition asking for an opt-out from the Federated Data Platform reached 10,000 signatures, and the government has so far only said it will "consider it in future policy making," per WIRED.

A Real Setback in Policing

While the NHS fight plays out in Westminster, Palantir just lost ground on the ground. Liberty Investigates and Democracy for Sale reported on September 19 that five East Midlands police forces—Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire—are ending their involvement in a two-year pilot of Palantir's "Project Nectar" data-sharing tool, run through the East Midlands Special Operations Unit.

Those five forces were among 12 of England and Wales' 43 police forces reported to be using the tool. Ian Green, regional assistant chief constable for the unit, told Liberty Investigates the decision followed "scoping work" and an assessment of funding and delivery, but he wouldn't elaborate on why the project was dropped. The Home Office paid for the pilot, but the costs weren't disclosed.

An internal police document obtained by Liberty Investigates showed Project Nectar was designed to build a "unified view" of data including people's race, religion, sex life, political opinions, philosophical beliefs and genetic information. Such sensitive-category data collection ought to draw scrutiny regardless of who the vendor is.

Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley said he was "delighted to see that police forces have seen through the sales sheen of Palantir," adding that "the NHS should sit up and take notice and not renew their contract." That's a political opinion from an opposition MP, not a finding from any regulator or watchdog. No investigation into Palantir's conduct has been announced, and the police forces involved have not alleged wrongdoing, only that they chose not to continue the pilot.

The Case for Keeping Palantir

Supporters of the NHS contract, including senior Labour officials and parliamentary veterans, argue the Federated Data Platform genuinely improves how the NHS uses fragmented patient data, and that ripping out an embedded system mid-stream risks disruption to care and would likely cost more in the short term than staying the course. Whitehall's own warning about a "botched changeover" reflects operational risk. Palantir has also emphasized, through its public statements, that it wants to "deepen the social and economic value its work creates" for British public services.

On the other side, the concern isn't hypothetical bureaucratic caution. It's who's holding the data and why. Palantir was co-founded by Trump donor Peter Thiel and provides software to the Israeli military and to ICE's immigration enforcement in the US, according to The Guardian. Critics argue a single foreign vendor holding sensitive health and policing data, including on race, religion, and genetics, deserves real scrutiny before Britain locks in another contract cycle. That's a legitimate policy debate, not a smear.

The Revolving Door Problem

Palantir just hired Tom Watson, Labour's former deputy leader, as a full-time senior vice president, working alongside UK and Europe chief executive Louis Mosley, The Guardian reported. Watson had already been a part-time Palantir adviser since 2024. Palantir CEO Alex Karp called it the "latest chapter of Tom's forty-year fight for better public services."

Watson isn't the only former official cashing in. Former deputy PM Nick Clegg spent years at Meta. Former PM Rishi Sunak took jobs with Anthropic and Microsoft. Former Chancellor George Osborne joined OpenAI. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's former AI adviser, Matt Clifford, joined Anthropic this month after quitting a government science and tech role under pressure over conflicts of interest, per The Guardian.

Tom Brake, chief executive of Unlock Democracy, called for "an enforceable five-year ban on taking up industry posts" for ministers and senior civil servants who handled privileged information. No such law exists in Britain today. Whether the Starmer government backs one, or instead simply makes its call on Palantir's NHS contract in the coming weeks, remains the open question hanging over Westminster, with Burnham among those pressing loudest for action.