The growing relationship between the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the US data analytics and surveillance firm Palantir has ignited an intense debate about transparency, accountability, and national sovereignty in British defence policy. At the heart of this controversy lies a familiar but deeply contentious phenomenon: the “revolving door” between senior public officials and powerful private contractors. Over the past few years-and with particular intensity in 2025-Palantir has systematically recruited former high-ranking defence officials while simultaneously securing some of the most lucrative public contracts in the UK’s modern defence history.

Palantir, founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, is no ordinary technology company. It specialises in AI-driven data analytics platforms used by military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies worldwide. The firm has long been associated with US national security interests, having received early backing from the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, and it maintains close ideological and political ties to former and current US President Donald Trump. Its expansion within the UK defence and public sector ecosystem therefore raises questions that extend well beyond procurement rules and into the realm of geopolitical alignment and democratic oversight.

In August 2025, Barnaby Kistruck concluded an almost two-decade career in the British civil service when he stepped down as the Ministry of Defence’s director of industrial strategy, prosperity and exports. During his tenure, Kistruck worked extensively on defence policy, national security, and industrial planning. Notably, he played a key role in drafting the UK’s Strategic Defence Review and the accompanying Defence Industrial Strategy, both published in the summer of 2025. These documents emphasised the expanded use of artificial intelligence, data integration, and advanced analytics as central pillars of future defence capability.

Just nine days after leaving public office, Kistruck took up a new role as a senior counsellor at Palantir. Within three months of his appointment, the company was awarded a three-year MoD contract worth £240 million to “modernise defence” through advanced data analytics systems designed to support strategic, tactical, and real-time operational decision-making across the armed forces. The contract-Palantir’s largest ever with the MoD-was awarded without a competitive tender.

While no allegations of wrongdoing have been made against Kistruck, the timing of his transition from policymaker to corporate adviser has drawn sharp scrutiny. Critics argue that such moves exemplify the risks inherent in revolving-door recruitment, where individuals with intimate knowledge of government strategy, procurement priorities, and institutional culture are swiftly absorbed into firms seeking to sell services back to the same departments.

Kistruck was not an isolated case. In 2025 alone, Palantir hired four individuals from the UK defence establishment. Alongside Kistruck were Laurence Lee and Damian Parmenter, both senior civil servants with extensive defence backgrounds, as well as Leo Docherty, the former Conservative minister for armed forces who lost his parliamentary seat in the July 2024 general election. This cluster of appointments reinforced perceptions that Palantir is deliberately embedding itself within the UK’s defence policy network.

At the same time as it was recruiting former officials, Palantir was dramatically expanding its institutional access. Throughout 2025, the company held official meetings with the prime minister, the US ambassador to the UK, six cabinet ministers, and senior officials from the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Home Office, and the MoD. In February of that year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and then US ambassador Peter Mandelson paid an “informal visit” to Palantir’s headquarters in Washington, DC. The visit included a tour of the firm’s facilities, a question-and-answer session with staff, and a private meeting with Palantir CEO Alex Karp.

Four months later, Palantir’s UK chief executive, Louis Mosley, was appointed to the Ministry of Defence’s Industrial Joint Council-the government’s principal forum for strategic engagement with the defence industry. By September, during President Trump’s UK state visit, the MoD announced a formal “strategic partnership” with Palantir, cementing the company’s status as a central player in Britain’s defence modernisation agenda.

For campaigners and analysts, this convergence of personnel movement, privileged access, and major contract awards has raised red flags. Iain Overton of the campaign group Action on Armed Violence warned that the “steady stream of senior defence officials moving into Palantir should concern anyone interested in how the military-industrial complex works.” He argued that Britain risks becoming overly dependent on a single American proprietary technology provider, with profound implications for accountability and operational independence.

The concern is not merely theoretical. Palantir’s platforms are designed to integrate deeply into an organisation’s data infrastructure, often resulting in significant technical lock-in. Once embedded, switching providers can be complex, costly, and operationally risky. Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley, who previously worked in the telecommunications sector, has described Palantir systems as “designed to result in massive technical lock-in”-a commercial advantage for the supplier, but a strategic vulnerability for the state.

From a defence perspective, such dependency raises the spectre of a single point of failure in critical national systems. From a democratic perspective, it challenges transparency and oversight. If core military planning, intelligence analysis, and operational decision-making rely on proprietary algorithms controlled by a foreign-based firm, meaningful parliamentary scrutiny becomes harder to achieve.

These concerns have been amplified by the broader geopolitical context. President Trump’s re-election has unsettled many European governments, particularly in light of his erratic foreign policy statements and explicit threats-such as suggesting the use of force or economic coercion to assert US interests in Greenland. Against this backdrop, the reliance of European states on US technology firms with close ties to the Trump administration has become increasingly contentious.

The UK is not alone in grappling with these dilemmas. Denmark, according to specialist intelligence outlet Intelligence Online, is reportedly seeking to replace Palantir within its intelligence services, driven by fears that sensitive data processed by the firm could be accessible to US authorities. Similar concerns emerged in Switzerland, where an internal report commissioned by the Swiss army warned of potential risks that US intelligence agencies could access data shared with Palantir, despite contractual assurances. Ultimately, Switzerland rejected a proposed deal with the company.

Palantir has consistently denied such allegations, insisting that its business model depends on customer trust and that robust contractual, procedural, and technical safeguards ensure clients retain full control over their data. Nonetheless, the persistence of these concerns across multiple jurisdictions underscores the strategic anxieties surrounding the firm’s role in sovereign defence and intelligence systems.

Palantir’s expanding footprint in the UK extends well beyond defence. The company currently holds public sector contracts worth over £500 million, with potential future MoD commitments that could double that figure. Its most controversial civilian contract is the £330 million agreement awarded in November 2023 to build and operate the NHS Federated Data Platform, a system designed to manage vast quantities of sensitive health data.

This contract has drawn sustained opposition from MPs, human rights groups, and medical professionals. The British Medical Association and others have questioned whether a company with deep roots in military surveillance should play such a central role in the healthcare system. In early 2026, Green Party leader Zack Polanski delivered a letter to Palantir’s London office warning that he would seek to terminate the NHS contract if his party gained influence.

“This is a military surveillance company tied to authoritarian surveillance and the devastation in Gaza,” Polanski said in a video statement. “It has no role in our NHS.”

The recruitment of former civil servants is not new for Palantir. In late 2022, the firm hired several ex-UK officials around the time it signed its first MoD Enterprise Agreement, initially valued at £75 million. One prominent example was Polly Scully, a former MoD strategic director who joined Palantir as senior counsellor for UK government relations. In 2023, she personally invited then-armed forces minister James Heappey to a Palantir-hosted reception celebrating the agreement, emphasising the importance of “trusted relationships” between the MoD and industry.

Such episodes illustrate how personal networks and institutional familiarity can blur the boundary between public service and private interest. While Palantir and the MoD both insist that all appointments comply with business appointment rules and non-compete clauses, critics argue that formal compliance does not address the deeper issue of perception and influence.

As the UK accelerates its adoption of AI and data-driven defence capabilities, the Palantir relationship represents a strategic crossroads. Supporters argue that the firm provides cutting-edge technology essential for modernising the armed forces and maintaining interoperability with key allies, particularly the United States. Critics counter that outsourcing critical thinking infrastructure to a politically connected foreign corporation risks eroding sovereignty, accountability, and public trust.

The debate ultimately centres on a fundamental question: how should a democratic state balance efficiency, innovation, and security against independence, transparency, and control? As MPs continue to raise concerns in Parliament and European partners reassess their own reliance on Palantir, the UK government faces mounting pressure to demonstrate that no single company-however technologically advanced-has become indispensable.

In an era marked by geopolitical volatility and rapid technological change, the consequences of that decision will extend far beyond any single contract, shaping the future of British defence, public services, and democratic governance for years to come.

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