Palantir Targets MPs With ‘Intimidating’ Letters

British MPs who criticised Palantir in parliament received “intimidating” letters from the US spytech firm, Novara Media can reveal. The MPs say it won’t stop them from continuing to hold Palantir to account. 

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Labour and Cooperative MP Rachael Maskell both received letters from Palantir’s UK CEO Louis Mosley in June, detailing the MPs’ anti-Palantir contributions in the House of Commons, and offering to meet. 

Corbyn slammed the letters from Mosley as intimidation. “I am in no doubt as to why Palantir is writing these letters to MPs: to intimidate its critics into silence,” he told Novara Media. “Their tactics of intimidation will not work and they will not shut me up. I will never be deterred from speaking out against Palantir, which should have no place in our public services whatsoever.”

Palantir, co-founded by billionaires Alex Karp and Peter Theil, has close ties to the Trump administration. Its increasing entrenchment in the British state via contracts with the NHS, Ministry of Defence and various police forces has sparked significant national security and data privacy concerns. 

Palantir’s letter to Corbyn listed his comments relating to the firm in the Commons on 1 June as part of a debate on the appointment of Peter Mandelson to the post of US ambassador despite his well-documented friendship with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson’s now-shuttered lobbying firm Global Counsel counted Palantir among its clients. 

The letter to Maskell listed her statements and questions about Palantir on four separate occasions in parliament, from 10 February to 1 June. Both letters were sent on 3 June. 

Maskell, who represents York Central, told Novara Media the letter from Palantir wouldn’t impact her approach towards the firm. “Clearly there is a reason as to why Palantir has paid close attention to the scrutiny that MPs have brought to this company which has been handed lucrative contracts by successive governments,” she said. “I have continually expressed my deepest concern about the government engaging with this business, before it was awarded the NHS contract.” 

Independent MP for Leicester South Shockat Adam was also contacted by Palantir. He received an email this month from Palantir’s UK public affairs lead in response to critical tweets about the warfare and AI company’s involvement in the NHS and its now-ended contract with Leicestershire police.

Adam told Novara Media: “As public and parliamentary scrutiny grows, MPs who raise concerns are being sent letters from the company’s lobbyists. Palantir says it welcomes scrutiny. Then let it prove it. The public has a right to know how this American company’s software is used across our NHS, our armed forces and our police, on what terms, and who answers for it. 

“Peter Thiel, Alex Karp and Louis Mosley should come to parliament and explain their role in person. Free speech and democratic oversight of public contracts are not optional.”

A Palantir spokesperson said: “There are a great deal of incorrect claims about Palantir circulating online. When politicians – sometimes inadvertently – amplify these falsehoods, they risk misleading the public. The purpose of these letters was to set the record straight. If politicians continue to repeat false claims, we will continue to correct them.”

Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, revealed that he had received a letter from Palantir’s new UK senior VP, Tom Watson, warning him that the company was surveilling his activities relating to Palantir last month. Lewis described this as “very Big Brother” and an “implicit threat”. 

Watson is a former minister and Labour party deputy leader who now sits in the House of Lords, alongside his Palantir job. 

Lewis told Novara Media the Mosley letters in June indicate that Palantir was panicking as the Starmer administration crumbled. “They put all their eggs in one basket with Starmer, and then the writing on the wall was that he wasn’t going to be around much longer.” 

Corbyn has repeatedly questioned the wisdom of using Palantir’s tech in the NHS, given the company’s role in supplying military tech to the IDF during the genocide in Gaza and surveillance tools to ICE as it conducts brutal a immigration crackdown in the US. 

Palantir currently holds a highly controversial patient data contract with the NHS, which campaigners and medics say has damaged trust in the health service. The government is under pressure from health workers and patients to allow Palantir’s NHS contract to end in February 2027.  

Palantir holds swathes of lucrative contracts in sensitive areas of the British state – now estimated to total nearly £1bn. Maskell raised the issue of these contracts being expanded without “due process or competition” in February. Both Corbyn and Maskell have highlighted the links between Palantir and the disgraced Labour grandee Mandelson. 

Then-PM Starmer visited Palantir’s offices in Washington in February 2025, when the spytech firm was a client of consultancy firm Global Counsel, which Mandelson co-founded and held shares in until February 2026. The meeting was set up by the British embassy in the US, headed at the time by Mandelson. No record of what was discussed has been published. 

In December last year, Palantir landed its biggest ever MoD deal, worth £240m, without a competitive tendering process. 

Mandelson currently faces charges of misconduct in public office over allegations he passed confidential information to Epstein during the 2008 financial crisis. 

Lewis described Palantir as an “America-first corporation”. “We stopped China building our 5G network,” he said. “Why would you want people like Alex Karp and Peter Thiel building your 21st century infrastructure?”