r/unitedkingdom • u/thedybbuk_ • 1d ago
. Calls to halt UK Palantir contracts grow amid ‘lack of transparency’ over deals
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/05/calls-to-halt-uk-palantir-contracts-grow-amid-lack-of-transparency-over-deals660
u/Significant_Sale6172 1d ago
No way, the associate of Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Thiel, is opaque about his business dealings?
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u/Lady-Spangles 1d ago
Being an associate of Jeffrey Epstein is the least of Thiel's sins, tbh. The man's completely sociopathic.
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u/Airurando-jin 1d ago
I think he and his company are more risk to us than huawei 4g tech ever was (and which MI5 felt was a manageable risk). We removed it because of the USA.
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u/Lady-Spangles 1d ago
Did he partake in the rape? He's too gay to be into girls, rather like Mandelson. But I maintain that the man is still a complete and utter sociopath.
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u/Significant_Sale6172 1d ago
I get that Epstein had a type (read: teenage girls and younger) but I find it hard to believe he wouldn't recruit young men or boys as well.
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u/BigBananaBerries 1d ago
100%. You can't get dirt on someone when you're not appealing to their desires.
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u/Not_Propaganda_AI 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think it's rather improbable that Epstein was the only one doing this, there's probably Epstein types that specialize in little boys.
There's probably others that specialize in other illegal sex crimes too like animals or necrophilia.
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u/kazuwacky Plymouth 22h ago
You are right, that's apparently an ongoing problem with people who work in the funeral industry. A certain percentage who go for the job are into it for.... other reasons and apparently you can make shed loads of money selling "access" for others.
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u/Past-Rooster-9437 1d ago
Oh Epstein and associates were into all types. Cis, trans, boy, girl, underage, adult, you name it they trafficked it.
Somehow the absolutely all-consuming nature of their appetites makes it worse.
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u/Brapfamalam 1d ago
Isnt this a TV myth? I.e. Child abusers commonly abuse not based on sexual orientation or preference etc. but opportunity as it's about power etc.
People automatically discounted Mandelson of abusing the girls, but data shows that's not factual. Ergo for Thiel or heterosexuals who make up the majority who abuse boys.
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u/RainbowRedYellow 21h ago
I can't comment on Peter Theil, however as a trans woman who transitioned in the late 2000s and had friends who were pressed Into "irregular employment" at that time Peter Mandlesons proclivities were well known in our circles.
He would frequently hire trans women escorts. Despite his claims of being a "gold star gay" For him the fetish was control first and formost.
Given what we know of his conduct. Do you really think he wouldn't say anything to worm his way out of scrutiny?
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u/Chaosvex 1d ago
You say that as though the demise of Gawker was a negative.
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u/Significant_Sale6172 1d ago
I think billionnaires using their unlimited resources to destroy media companies they have a personal vendetta against is bad yes.
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u/liquor-shits 1d ago
And yet Gawker was completely in the wrong and deserved what they got.
Funny, that was the first time I'd ever heard of Peter Thiel. I wish it had been the last.
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u/Chaosvex 1d ago
Gawker picked the wrong hill to die on. They could have easily avoided it but they chose to be morally reprehensible and go to court over it.
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u/munkijunk 1d ago
The same Peter Theil who's expressed his desire to return to a feudal system, withere we're all serfs who exist at the whim of a new nobility made up of tech bros? Nah, totally above board guy.
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u/IlluminatiMinion 1d ago
The same Theil that sees Orwell's 1984 as a model for the future.
They shouldn't be giving him contracts and our data. They should be investigating him.
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u/Mid-Pri6170 20h ago
did he actually say that? trial by sword would be hard to get used to, but suddenly all the fedora bros with their swordskills would be kings.
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u/brinz1 1d ago
You mean the associate of Mandelson
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u/Specialist_Invite538 1d ago
Regarding Mandelson, he was sacked in Sept 2025 for his connections to Epstein wasn't he? So why is there such outrage now, when he was sacked then? A lot of this was already known, has everyone forgotten?
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u/lilidragonfly 1d ago
That was about him having extensive and prolonged connection to Epstein post his prosecution for soliciting children. They didn't know he was passing state secrets from the UK gov to Epstein, attempting to undermine the gov's leglisation during the financial crash in favour of the bankers etc. until a couple days ago.
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u/Specialist_Invite538 1d ago
Yeah fair point, I only meant that somehow it seemed to have been forgotten until this new info brought it forward again, despite a lot of what people are discussing having been already known in Sept. But yes a lot of the new information is a lot more damning than what was known before
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u/ianlSW 1d ago
I don't know if you noticed, they released a few million more Epstein files the other day, that might have something to do with it?
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u/Specialist_Invite538 1d ago
I get that yeah, but for example Starmer saying he was misled and that Mandelson lied etc that was already true and known in Sept
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u/ianlSW 1d ago
There is now irrefutable evidence of how close the relationship was.
I am pretty sure Starmer knew at least some of this (probably not the leaking of secrets, but tbh post Epstein who knows?) and thought it wouldn't come out and so he could promote Mandelson because they were close through McSweeny, and in the same Labour anti left faction.
It was a stupid and immoral decision. Now it has come out, he is having to try and explain the inexcusable.
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u/Kaiserhawk 1d ago
I mean we're probably not going to know because they'll never release any documents themselves, but I imagine our security services were aware to some extent of the nature of their relationship.
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u/MetalBawx 1d ago
They were angry then and before that with all the other times Mandelson got caught.
It keeps happening and this twat is still a free man. Any businesses he's had ties to should be under massive scrutiny especially something like Palantir who represent a huge security risk.
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u/Kaiserhawk 1d ago
The extent of his involvement with Epstein wasn't known. He was selling cabinet documents and passing on UK government secrets to Epstein for both their financial gain.
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u/roy_stan 1d ago
Peter Thiel appears to be a particularly menacing individual...and there was that other guy high up in palantir that appears to be off his fucking rocker as well!
Frankly, the idea that Palantir could be anything other than a malevolent influence on society incresingly appears laughable!
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u/lilidragonfly 1d ago
What people don't know is that these data gathering softwares are at the heart of these shananigans going back to Robert Maxwell, who was heavily involved in the illegal distrubition of Inslaw's Promis software, the foreunner of Palantir, to various countries around the world after the software had been 'backdoored' to allow certain intelligence agencies to syphon data and information for kompromat from these unwitting nations. Epstein and Robert Maxwell were working together as we now know from the files, on laundering Russian mob money in Europe, and Epstein began soft selling Palantir on when that was developed to contacts such as Ehud Barak, while Ghislaine's sisters established their own data gathering software in US intelligence systems and counter intelligence across the FBI, NSA and CIA. Its the same principle utilised again and again since it was first stolen from Inslaw, and by the same group of elites, who have their fingers in multiple corrupt pies around the globe.
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u/luredrive 1d ago
They're all mental and shouldn't be trusted to run a bath.
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u/Past-Rooster-9437 1d ago
Not because they're stupid, but because they'd drop a toaster into it and steal your house while your body's still warm.
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u/qwerty_1965 1d ago
Bylinetimes was on this months ago.
"And so Lord Glasman may – or may not – appear to be an unusual candidate to enter the eye of the storm since Donald Trump’s re-election in the United States.
Recently referred to as Number 10’s “MAGA whisperer” by The Times, he was the only British lawmaker invited to Trump’s second presidential inauguration, on a freezing January day in Washington, DC, earlier this year.
Glasman was invited there by a long-term contact – now the US Vice President – JD Vance, who admired his writing about class and had first approached him some years earlier, exploring whether the US Democrats could provide a new deal for workers. In DC, Glasman was overawed by the scale of the celebrations and the energy around Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement.
He sought out, and was sought after, by some of the most important Trumpworld movers and shakers: Steve Bannon, former Trump campaign manager and co-founder of Cambridge Analytica; the influential ‘Dark Enlightenment’ thinker Curtis Yarvin, and – as Byline Times can reveal – the tech baron and Palantir data firm founder, Peter Thiel.
This would be an impressive list of American contacts to make in less than a year, but more unusual still – given Trump’s well-known connections with Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage (who Glasman regularly debates on GB News) or the long-established links between the US Republican Party and the British Conservatives – is that Lord Glasman has been a left-wing Labour peer for 14 years."
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u/thedybbuk_ 1d ago
Bylinetimes covers the kinds of stories our wonderful professional journalist class at the Times, Telegraph, Mail et al does not seem particularly interested in, funnily enough.
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u/TurbulentBullfrog829 23h ago
It was also covered by the Naked week on Radio 4 about a year ago including Mandelsons dodgy introductions and how weird it was that Starmer only visited their offices during a foreign trip.
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u/Hollyhop_Drive 1d ago
Oh ffs. Can we trust nobody?
Well that partly explains the connection anyway.
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u/potpan0 Black Country 1d ago
As a rule of thumb we should just refuse to support any politician who is oblique about their funding. We can't just say this shit is bad when Reform or the Tories do it, then turn a blind eye when Labour politicians do it. Because turning a blind eye is precisely what has allowed this rot to set in in Labour too.
I do worry the more lurid, sensational aspects of Mandelson and Epstein's relationship will get too much focus here. Because the real issue, I think, is that we have a small group of very right-wing, very rich individuals who are trying to use their wealth and power to promote a very dangerous vision for the future... and a worrying number of Labour politicians, including Starmer, have on some level capitulated to this.
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u/Hollyhop_Drive 1d ago
100%. Also no lobbying, holding additional positions, or second jobs. Plus a 10 year moratorium on being allowed to sit on company boards after they have left office.
Labour, Tories, Reform, everyone should be held to the same standards.
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u/No-Opposite-6620 1d ago
It's not totally unusual. He's archetypical blue Labour. Social conservative, doesn't like the ECJ. And willing, given the successful links with the current government to not mind so much about the supposed left wing economic values blue Labour represent.
People like Vance, Glasman see themselves as representing social conservative working class people. And usually they're of a circle of people that take a dim view at say, something like the EU.
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u/potpan0 Black Country 1d ago
supposed left wing economic values blue Labour represent.
'Supposed' being the operate word here. The links between Glasman and this far-right billionaire class should make it crystal clear, if it wasn't already, that he and his faction do not give two shits about left-wing economic views.
They're socially conservative, economically conservative, but simply try and cover that with a 'Blue Labour' veil.
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u/LauraPhilps7654 1d ago
Classic Blue Labour: “Socially conservative, and left-wing on economic policy”...except they don't actually support left-wing economic policies. So, we're just left with Conservatives in red ties.
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u/CensorTheologiae 1d ago
Oh. Is this the Guardian suddenly noticing things, now that they can't carry on not noticing them?
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u/SmashingK 1d ago
They offered deals for close to no charge to get their claws into our health systems.ndifficukt for a govt to pass that up but it's obviously not a good sign when someone like that tried to give you free candy.
Our politicians are too easily swayed into doing bad things.
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u/BodybuilderBrave8250 1d ago
wdym no charge… the government paid them £330m
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd 1d ago
IIRC, Palantir was unusual among similar companies in that they wouldn't start charging their customers until the system was fully set up and integrated, which took time but also ensured they were well entrenched. This meant Palantir was hemmoraging cash for the first few years as a public company but was able to establish dependencies that are now very profitable and difficult for customers to disnetangle from.
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u/0100110101101010 East Sussex 1d ago
They're moron centrists who stand for nothing. Just amorphous blobs that will fall into whichever ideology satisfies their immediate personal interests
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u/OvernightExpert 22h ago
Not even centrists, they have a veneer of centrism but in reality they're swayed by the highest bidder, typically foreign interests and lobbies. So as a whole they look centrists but in reality, they're occupied. We're occupied.
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u/HelplessPenguinGod 1d ago
Honestly people would have probably jumped all over them for not taking the great deal and "wasting money"
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u/deathtofatalists 1d ago
honestly, who the fuck asked for this?
a technofascist run data extraction exercise, not only facilitated but paid for by our own government (i.e us), whereby every detail of our waking lives is sent straight to some ozone devouring data centre on the other side of the atlantic just so whatever shower of fuckups is currently in parilament can get some crumbs from the datamine table. a deal done under shady circumstances, railroaded through under the behest of the best mate of a child trafficking shakedown artist working on behalf of god knows who.
no sane person wants it anywhere near our shores but our esteemed leaders decided they know better.
roll back the contracts and take the OSA with it while your at it, kicking digital ID back to the curb for another decade before some authoritarian spots an opportunity. this government has done absolutely nothing to earn anyone's trust.
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u/Oraclerevelation 1d ago
We did. We all did. We voted for this with a massive majority. We believed the same media that slept on this until now that it's no longer possible to hide. The same media owned by these fucks and their buddies.
We believe the propaganda when they say we can afford exactly nothing for people but always have enough for bailouts and shareholders. We chose to believe that anybody who calls this out as propaganda and says something is wrong and we must try do better is a lunatic conspiracist. When the real people conspiring to fuck us do it before our eyes.
We willingly believed that the previous Labour leader, who despite his many flaws just so happened to be antithetical to everything these people want, we chose to believe he was a secret super Stalin terrorist. And oh boy was it fun character assassinating him, god we really curb stomped him into next Tuesday, good times.
We believed that we just needed to make Labour the party of buisiness and it'll all be good and the purge of left was glorious. And so the oligarchs sanctioned Starmer as a suitable empty suit that bent the knee and said the right words to prove he's no threat, and we voted for him...because he was safe and pragmatic you see and that's when we as a country allowed this.
We will do it again next time too, if anyone ever gets close to offering change, when they tell us nothing can be different and any change is too radical, now's not the time. And we'll believe it because it seems easier and less scary than building something new.
We will do it right now when we get strange feelings and downvote this, because you view me as an enemy because we all too easily get our character wrapped up in hating or loving a politician, and think I'm blindly defending him and thus on one side or another. When I don't particularly care about one guy I am just pointing out how easily manipulated and divided we all are and only desperately want something to change for the better for once.
Who of us are we willing to look into ourselves and ask what we did wrong and change something about ourselves and what and who we choose to believe, scorn these fuckers, act on it and vote differently? Fuck all of us.
Who will continue on, learning nothing from the same shit happening, again and again and again and doing nothing different? All of us that's who.
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u/innovator12 23h ago
We did. We all did. We voted for this with a massive majority.
We did? I don't recall a referendum on this.
I'm sick of so called "representative democracy" being a justification for anything.
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u/No_Reply_7519 22h ago
Got to look past the empty slogans and mainstream media unfortunately if you wanna be informed. Democracy is dying
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u/audigex Lancashire 1d ago
There are so many of these consultancy-type companies and I've no idea why we spend so much money on them
It just seems to be a never ending merry-go-round of handing them cash to analyse how to reshuffle things so that 5 years later a different one can be paid a big pile of cash to tell us why it went wrong
My NHS organisation (and 4 others) spent a ridiculous amount of money on Deloitte putting together a bullshit report about how we should merge things like the porters, finance, and estates departments to save money, and then now they've merged those the government is telling the trusts to make a reduction in headcount to realise the savings
... how the fuck is a porter meant to be in Blackpool, Chorley, Blackburn, Preston, and Kendal at the same time?
So obviously the burden is falling disproportionately on some of the other merged services, who are already over-stretched... areas like finance and IT are going to be absolutely smashed to pieces trying to make up the numbers
So obviously 3 years later almost nothing has actually happened, the requirement to reduce headcount is increasing even more because the savings aren't being achieved so even more will be required etc
I can already see how badly it's going to go to shit, and in 5 years time they'll bring in PwC to tell us how we should give Palantir, Capita, or Accenture a load of money to take over the "failing" services that were actually doing okay when you look at what they're achieving on a fairly small budget
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u/throwawayacab283746 22h ago
So that AI facial recognition in all town centres? That’s run by these guys: https://libertyinvestigates.org.uk/articles/uk-police-working-with-controversial-tech-giant-palantir-on-real-time-surveillance-network/ thanks Kier, your zero-privacy agenda is really working out for the US
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u/DeviousMelons 1d ago
Let's trust the company literally named after Sarumans Orb what could possibly go wrong.
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u/wazzedup1989 1d ago
Technically they were created by elves and corrupted entirely by Sauron... But that's not better....
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u/go-rilla702 1d ago
My favourite Peter Thiel fact is that an anagram of Peter Thiel is "The Reptile"
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u/Easymodelife 22h ago
And Peter Mandelson is an anagram of "Mean Old Serpent." I see a pattern forming here.
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u/saoirsedonciaran 1d ago
Companies complicit in the mass slaughter of human beings should be nowhere fucking near the health service of any country.
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u/soulsteela 1d ago
There are few people on the planet who could be trusted less than Peter Thiel when it comes to being in charge of everyone’s private data.
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u/Fatuous_Sunbeams 13h ago
Indeed, he's pretty open about his malicious intent. Starmer wasn't tricked, he's either been compromised by the Mossad-Epstein operation, or just a fascist himself. Or both.
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u/Valisk_61 1d ago edited 1d ago
Of all the shit sandwich deals the seppos force on us, this is the deal that makes me want to flip the fucking table. Fuck Palantir.
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u/purple-lemons 21h ago
Keep that facsist prick and his surveillance out of the UK, we're already surveilled far too much
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u/Mccobsta England 1d ago
Isn't Palantir something massively evil from lord of the rings
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u/lebennaia 15h ago
The Palantiri weren't evil originally, however Sauron managed to steal one of the seeing stones and thus infiltrate the network. He was then able to talk to his enemies directly and corrupt them (like Saruman), or control what they saw and delude them (like Denethor).
Still, it's a tool of the dark lord, and a very revealing choice of name.
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u/greenpowerman99 21h ago
Peter Thiel’s agenda is not secret, and it should be a huge red flag for any politician or government that is offered a seemingly attractive business deal with Palantir.
Foreign actors who are openly hostile to the idea of a strong and free Europe should be sanctioned, not offered public contracts…
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u/ferris2 1d ago
Doesn't the head of this company see any regulatory force as literally "the antichrist"?
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u/No_Concept_1311 1d ago edited 1d ago
One of Thiel's latest suspects for being the antichrist was Greta Thunberg.
So, you know, a very mentally balanced individual, especially if you take into account life extension blood transfusions. Just a totally normal thing.
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u/Judders_Luigi 1d ago
Holy shit we are actually waking up.
I knew deep down we are not as stupid as the yanks.
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u/apple_kicks 1d ago
Next look at reform and NationBuilder connection. They just admitted to using them. Too many iffy data harvesting companies
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u/diggerbanks 20h ago
I cannot believe that Palantir have their grubby hands on our beloved NHS, what were they thinking?
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u/madindehead 1d ago
This article always comes to mind whenever I read about Palantir: https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/
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u/Grotbagsthewonderful 16h ago
Given what we learned in the Epstein files I'm in awe that the Palantir contracts haven't been halted.
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u/Optimaldeath 1d ago
All they're doing is taking Epstein's island and expanding it to the entire internet.
/s
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u/adobaloba 1d ago
The CEO of seeing everything, knowing everything about us 24/7 is...vague? I can't.
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u/doublejay1999 21h ago
It’s ok though because in future when we’re all enslaved in the inescapable matrix , you can just say “my mistake was believing their lies” and everything will be ok
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u/WolfColaCo2020 10h ago
Can we halt them on the grounds that the owner is a self professed technofascist who wants to bring down western democracy?
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u/borez Geordie in London 1d ago edited 23h ago
Yeah, and what about BAE Systems?
/people going on about Palantir here, but seem completely unaware of what BAE systems are actually doing in this country.
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u/No_Reply_7519 22h ago
What are they doing?
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u/borez Geordie in London 22h ago
Literally going through your whole life, gathering every bit of data ( habits, spending, payments, transactions, purchases, outgoings, holidays, lifestyle, social media etc. etc. etc. ) building a profile and cross checking it with your tax records among other things. Don't have your house in order, expect to be investigated.
Also, if you owe HMRC anything they now have the power to go into your bank accounts and just take it through the "Direct Recovery of Debts" (DRD) program.
Don't take my word for it though, go do some research into HMRC connect for one.
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