TL;DR

Lord Watson, once Labour’s deputy leader and since last month a senior vice-president at Palantir, has told ministers they could land “in a lot of trouble” if “mob rule” rather than the rule of law shapes procurement. Speaking on the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, reported by The Guardian on Friday 9 October, he was answering criticism of the government’s growing reliance on the US company.

What Watson said

Watson framed his message as advice to old colleagues, asking whether they wanted “the rule of law” or “mob rule” to lead procurement practice. He argued Palantir had been caught up in protests aimed at Israeli firms because of its work in Israel, despite not being an Israeli company, and said that, although Palantir does not operate in that field, it would help a future Reform UK administration with immigration enforcement.

He had already advised Palantir part-time since 2024. According to the company, he is on leave from the Lords and has given up his parliamentary pass for as long as he works for it in London.

The contracts under pressure

The stakes are large. Labour MPs and unions are pressing Andy Burnham to drop Palantir from government work, including its £330 million NHS software deal. The company is also suing over Sadiq Khan’s block on a £50 million deal to use its AI in Met investigations, and The Guardian puts its annual UK turnover at £427 million.

Chi Onwurah, the Labour MP chairing the Commons technology committee, was unconvinced. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, she said Watson was “not the first politician to be blinded by tech hype” and that the bigger issue is reliance “on one company”, given it is subject to US law on access to data.

Looking forward

Watson’s intervention comes in a mixed week for Palantir in UK policing: the East Midlands regional crime unit Emsou has chosen not to renew its Foundry trial, while the Met credits the same platform with exposing a senior volunteer officer. We covered mounting pressure over the NHS contract earlier this month. In our view, describing opposition as “mob rule” is unlikely to settle a debate that MPs such as Onwurah frame around dependence and data sovereignty rather than protest, and public bodies weighing renewals are likely to be judged on exit terms and data control, as Emsou’s deletion demand suggests.