Corbyn slams UK for £240m deal with Israel-linked US tech giant Palantir Submitted by Imran Mulla on Wed, 01/07/2026 - 13:50 Corbyn says US surveillance firm is linked to 'Trump’s anti-migrant authoritarianism and Israel’s genocide in Gaza' Jeremy Corbyn delivers a speech on the first day of the founding conference for Your Party in Liverpool, on 29 November 2025 (AFP) Off Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has slammed Britain 's Labour government for granting a major contract to US tech giant Palantir over its links to the Israeli military, in comments to Middle East Eye. In December, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) awarded Palantir, an American data and AI company, a £240 million ($323m) contract for "data analytics capabilities supporting critical strategic, tactical and live operational decision-making across classifications" over three years. The new contract is worth three times more than a previous MoD contract with Palantir signed in 2022, and is set to see the tech giant play a major role in modernising the UK's armed forces. Britain has further pledged to invest up to £750m in opportunities with Palantar over the coming five years. Corbyn, now an MP for the left-wing Your Party, told Middle East Eye on Wednesday: "From Trump’s anti-migrant authoritarianism to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Palanatir has enabled abominable human rights abuses around the world. "It is truly shameful that this government treats crimes against humanity as business opportunities." A separate £330m deal Palantir struck with the British government to process National Health Service (NHS) data was widely criticised last summer, with the British Medical Association saying the deal "threatens to undermine public trust in NHS data systems". The US company signed a strategic partnership deal with the Israeli defence ministry in January 2024 and has been a major partner for the US government's controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. 'Outsourcing our foreign policy' "Palantir have already got their hands on millions of people’s health records," Corbyn told MEE. "Now the government is outsourcing our foreign policy as well. "Why can’t we have our own independent foreign policy based on solidarity and peace instead?" Israel used Palantir technology in its 2024 Lebanon pager attack, book claims Read More » The deal was also criticised by Ben Wallace, who was the Conservative government's defence secretary from 2019 t0 2023. "True defence collaboration is sharing and growing manufacturing jobs. It isn’t some fake London office with a few PR people and ad campaigns abusing our Union Jack,” he said last September about the prospect of the MoD deal. Palantir software was used by Israel in its 2024 pager attacks in Lebanon , it emerged in December. On 17 September 2024, thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members, including civilians not involved in any armed activity, were detonated across Lebanon. In total, 42 people were killed and thousands wounded, many left with life-altering injuries to the eyes, face and hands. According to writer Michael Steinberger, Israel deepened its use of the company’s technology after it launched the war on Gaza in October 2023, deploying it in numerous operations. A report produced by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese last July said there "are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision making". Palantir did not respond to a request for comment at the time. UK Politics News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0