The people or Palantir: tech campaigners demand a new deal from Burnham

Andy Burnham’s arrival at Downing Street marks the UK’s seventh Prime Minister in a single tumultuous decade. Presenting himself as a “circuit-breaker” for an exhausted country, Burnham has promised to dismantle the Westminster consensus, reindustrialise the nation and set out a 10-year plan for the country.

Beyond the sweeping rhetoric, the question is whether he will represent a genuine break from Keir Starmer’s dismal playbook on tech or simply a more palatable version of the same corporate capitulation.

In this edition of the Citizens Understand, we asked leading tech justice campaigners and civil society groups to lay out their non-negotiable priorities for a new era of tech policy.

Day-one disruption

It took days of speculation and an urgent Lords question to untangle Burnham’s day-one decision to scrap the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). With its responsibilities redistributed across Whitehall, the new PM promoted Kanishka Narayan to AI Minister.

Creating an AI minister at the heart of government is a controversial decision, one that could potentially give the sector greater authority over the long term. But reorganising Whitehall takes time. More importantly, as tech justice campaigner Adele Walton points out, the appointment will “only benefit the UK if policy decisions are made with our voices heard at every stage, rather than being overshadowed by the Big Tech lobby”.

Changing the machinery of government means little unless we fundamentally shift who our tech policy serves. “AI policy must be shaped by those who it will impact, not the corporations who seek to extract from our economy, our industries and our natural environment”, Walton adds.

Breaking the grip

“Burnham’s priority should be to end the UK’s dependency on a handful of US-based tech companies that have excessive influence over our lives,” Jim Killock, Executive Director at Open Rights Group, told us.

Leaders are already beginning to do just that. Facing a reality where Europe relies on non-EU countries for 80% of its key digital services, products and infrastructure, the European Commission has adopted sweeping measures to bolster digital autonomy, while national governments are actively purging software supplied by Trump-aligned contractors such as Palantir.

Burnham should follow suit, Killock argues, and “create a framework that puts the UK in control of its critical digital infrastructure”.

Britain, however, has so far travelled in the opposite direction. Despite the recent announcement of “a decisive shift to power British AI” - a £1.1bn hardware plan - Starmer’s tenure was ultimately marked by repeatedly bowing to the demands of the tech lobby, allowing US tech companies to embed themselves at the heart of the state despite initial promises to protect public data from being handed over as private assets.

Nowhere is that dependency more acute than our health service. “Relentlessly lobbied by Big Tech, ministers uncritically accepted the notion that AI products are the answer to every challenge facing the NHS,” says Hope Worsdale, Head of Communications at Just Treatment.

“If unchallenged, this approach will lock our NHS into an extractive monopoly-centred model that’s extremely difficult to escape, and impossible for patients to trust,” Worsdale continues.

Palantir has secured a £330 million contract with the NHS, bringing its known UK public sector contracts to at least £670 million. Yet those using the software Palanitr provides describe it as “slow and clunky”, an investigation by Democracy for Sale found, while the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says it has saved millions by replacing Palantir with an in-house system [Max?].

Worsdale calls for Burnham to “cancel Palantir’s deeply controversial contract as an urgent, bare-minimum first step”.

The solution, Worsdale says, is to “invest in NHS capacity so that we can develop UK-owned and controlled health data systems that are run solely in the interests of patients and public health”.

A spokesperson for Pull the Plug has a similar demand. “Burnham should immediately exercise the break clause, removing Palantir from our NHS.

“He should instead create a citizens’ assembly on AI, seeking public views on everything from copyright to data centres, procurement to transparency, and enact those views in Parliament.”

During his nearly decade-long tenure as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham notably awarded zero contracts to Palantir. That record gives us rare cause for hope.

The cost of data centres

Beyond Palantir, speculation is growing that Burnham’s new tech strategy will prioritise UK-owned data centres, as Adam Beaumont, chairman of AQL, claims national resilience requires “more compute within our shores”.

But campaigners we spoke to argue the PM must realign his goals to the current demand. “We hope that Burnham prioritises essential infrastructure, such as housing and hospitals, rather than building more and more data centres,” Pull the Plug says.

This comes after the government classified data centres as critical national infrastructure in 2024. In practice, this has meant server farms are prioritised ahead of housing—with London Assembly figures confirming the rollout of data centres make it harder and more costly to deliver new homes, stalling construction at the worst point of the capital’s housing crisis.

Then comes the environmental toll. Anisah Khan, Parliamentary Campaigns Manager at Global Action Plan, warns that the data centre surge sacrifices British communities for corporate profit: “The previous government has been fast-tracking data centre developments, bypassing local councils and ignoring community concerns,” Khan said.

“Burnham must put local communities at the forefront of decision making and reign in this reckless AI data centre rollout.”

Resource strain is already reaching a tipping point. An investigation by Foxglove and The Times revealed UK data centres devour an estimated 10 billion litres of water annually for cooling - a drain entirely absent from official water shortfall projections.

“Burnham must announce a moratorium on data centre developments until a clear strategy is in place that addresses community, environmental and social concerns,” Khan added.

Time to take a stand

For years, politicians across parties have bought into the myth that we must choose between tech innovation and strict regulation. In reality, the choice is between enforcing democratic rules or living under terms of service dictated by Silicon Valley.

From Palantir’s growing grip on public infrastructure to AI data centres draining local water supplies, time and time again it is the public who pays the price while offshore shareholders reap the rewards.

What is clear to us - and echoed across the campaigners and experts we spoke to - is that if Burnham is serious about building a fairer, more resilient economy, he must reject the soft promises of the tech lobby and return power to the people.

One way to do that is through an immediate, nine-week public commission on AI, as proposed by Take Back Big Tech. Rather than allowing lobbyists to write the rules, the commission would “bring a crowded field of ideas into one practical programme for government”, giving the public the opportunity to shape both a 100-day action plan and an 18-month route to legislation.

“The aim is safer technology, stronger protection for children, proper control over public data and less dependence on a handful of big tech firms.” The choice is now Burnham’s.

About The Citizens Understand: In an era where technology is reshaping democracy faster than laws can keep up and power is increasingly exercised through platforms, Citizens Understand exists to cut through misinformation and make complex systems legible. If there’s something you’d like to understand, email lillian@the-citizens.com.