{"id":797279,"date":"2026-10-09T18:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/797279\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T18:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:34:17","slug":"palantirs-tom-watson-says-mob-rule-must-not-dictate-awarding-of-government-contracts-palantir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/797279\/","title":{"rendered":"Palantir\u2019s Tom Watson says \u2018mob rule\u2019 must not dictate awarding of government contracts | Palantir"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Watson, the former Labour deputy leader who recently joined Palantir, has warned against \u201cmob rule\u201d when it comes to awarding public contracts.<\/p>\n

Lord Watson, now a senior vice-president at the US tech corporation, said UK ministers could get themselves \u201cin a lot of trouble\u201d as he was questioned about concerns raised about the government working with his new employer.<\/p>\n

Palantir was co-founded by the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel and has provided AI-powered software to the Israeli military and the White House\u2019s ICE immigration crackdown<\/a>, leading to a public and political backlash against its deepening involvement in British public services.<\/p>\n

The prime minister, Andy Burnham<\/a>, is under significant pressure from Labour MPs and unions to ditch Palantir from government contracts, including a \u00a3330m software deal with the NHS.<\/p>\n

The company is also fighting Sadiq Khan in court over the London mayor\u2019s block on a \u00a350m contract<\/a> to use its AI in Metropolitan police investigations. It is seeking to win more public sector work in the UK, where it already has an annual turnover<\/a> of \u00a3427m.<\/p>\n

Watson told the BBC podcast Political Thinking with Nick Robinson: \u201cOne of the things I\u2019d say to my former colleagues is: do you want to let the rule of law lead procurement practice, or do you want mob rule to lead procurement practices? Because you get yourself in a lot of trouble if you go down on the latter one.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI think we are very targeted by the people that are targeting Israeli companies. We\u2019re not an Israeli company, but because of our work in Israel we found ourselves in the middle of the row of the Gaza protests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson told the podcast he would work with a Reform UK government on immigration crackdowns if the situation arose, saying: \u201cWe don\u2019t actually work in that sector, but yes, of course we would.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called Palantir<\/a> \u201cthe most interesting company on the planet\u201d as he announced his new role last month. The company said his job would be, in part, to \u201cdeepen the social and economic value its work creates through better British public services, jobs and skills\u201d.<\/p>\n

Watson was a defence minister and a minister for digital engagement in Gordon Brown\u2019s government. Since stepping down from parliament in 2019, he has been an adviser to the gambling and music industries and, since 2024, he has been a part-time adviser to Palantir.<\/p>\n

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Palantir said Watson had taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords and had relinquished his parliamentary pass while he worked for the company in London<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Labour MP Chi Onwurah, who chairs the science, innovation and technology committee, which has raised concerns about Palantir, told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme: \u201cTom is not the first politician to be blinded by tech hype. The key issue is we can\u2019t be so dependent on one company. It\u2019s a US company, subject to US legislation regarding access to our data.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Watson, the former Labour deputy leader who recently joined Palantir, has warned against \u201cmob rule\u201d when it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-797279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}