Meet and discreet
Palantir
, Issue 1679
Last September the then defence secretary John Healey met with what a freedom of information request from the Eye shows was a high-powered delegation from the company. It was led by chief executive Alex Karp and included UK boss Louis Mosley and UK “defence lead” Polly Scully, who was recruited in 2022 from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), where she had been strategy director.
The meeting took place a week before Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK, during which Healey unveiled a “new strategic partnership” with Palantir.
“Palantir and the UK military will work together to transform lethality on the battlefield,” said the MoD, promising £1.5bn investment from the company in the UK. “Some of these new capabilities will support development of what is known as the ‘kill chain’... to provide military commanders with faster options for attacking an enemy target.”
A few weeks later, Palantir was given a £240m contract, without competition, to develop the necessary systems.
Concerning Counsel
The involvement of the company controlled by Karp (who recently said “some cultures remain... dysfunctional and regressive”) and his fellow libertarian Peter Thiel (“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”) was already controversial. In February 2025 Keir Starmer had met with Palantir in Washington DC, courtesy of the UK’s then ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, while the consultancy firm he founded, Global Counsel, counted Palantir as a client.
The visit was criticised not just over Mandelson’s conflict of interest but for the failure to keep any record of it, which the Foreign Office defended on the grounds that it was an informal visit.
Silent defence
By September, Healey might have been expected to be more careful. But no. The MoD confirms that there are no minutes or other read-out of what the agenda suggests was a critical meeting.
It included the weighty matters of “how Palantir will work [with] other industry partners to drive greater integration, economic growth, and deliver on Defence Industrial Strategy and [strategic defence review]”, and the question: “How can Alex [Karp] and Palantir help Strengthening [sic] the transatlantic relationship?”
As well as providing the tech for the US’s brutal anti-immigration clampdown, Karp has also been a staunch Trump supporter, funding, among other things, his election campaign, inauguration and ballroom. So how the Palantir man might help improve the transatlantic relationship was perhaps something that should have been recorded. Failing to keep a record is a breach of both the ministerial and civil service codes.
The only official at the meeting was the MoD’s chief information officer at the time, Charles Forte. For him it followed a series of sit-downs and briefings with the company at the MoD or Palantir’s Soho HQ, plus a couple of the receptions at which the company schmoozes select officials. Forte left the MoD last month after eight years’ service and now acts as a consultant.
Registering objections
Starmer’s February 2025 meeting was not even declared on official registers, prompting Tory MP Mike Wood to ask how many other unregistered meetings have taken place with Palantir. The response from Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds? Er, look at the registers!
Next issue on sale: 23rd July 2026
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