The Labour government will not hold a public inquiry into the influence of pro-Israel groups in British politics, even after more than 114,000 people signed a parliamentary petition calling for a probe.
In a response to the petition, the government said it “does not support a public inquiry on pro-Israeli influence, and does not have plans to hold an inquiry on wider foreign influence and lobbying more generally.”
It added: “However, the government takes concerns about foreign influence in politics and democracy seriously, and is already taking action to address this.”
Last month, the government published an urgent review into foreign financial interference in UK politics. It mentioned Iran, Russia and China but not Israel.
Because the petition got over 100,000 signatures, it will still be considered for debate in the Commons. The petition reads: “We are concerned about reported Israeli state-linked and pro-Israel lobbying activity in UK politics. We believe it is important to determine the scope and impact of any such influence campaigns.”
It adds: “We feel that the horrific devastation in Gaza, the ongoing suppression of Palestinians in the West Bank, and the UK’s political response underline the urgent need to scrutinise how pro-Israel organisations, networks, and lobbying efforts may shape government decisions, party policy, and public debate.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
How is information made legitimate, and when is it appropriate for journalists to introduce skepticism? What happens when only one side of a conflict is given the legitimate voice, always repeated and rarely questioned, even when those sources have proven many times to have promulgated lies?
Military studies scholars and analysts understand that there is always a long genesis of historical, political and economic factors that can eventually erupt into conflict. In many ways, US establishment media seemed unwilling or unable (but likely both) to narrate a more complex, historically accurate account of the war on Gaza.
The Intercept (4/15/24) reported that editorial directives at the New York Times and CNN, two of the most important news sources in the US, advised reporters to avoid certain “taboo” words, such as “genocide” and “massacre.” Yet between October 7 and November 24, 2023, the Times used the word “massacre” 53 times—referring to Israelis killed by Palestinians, but only once to refer to a Palestinian killed by Israel (Intercept, 1/9/24).
From November onward, as deaths in Gaza piled up, the Times habitually avoided using emotionally fraught terms for Palestinians. Another term, “ethnic cleansing,” was also barred from use, along with “refugee camps” and “occupied territories.”
As the Times source who leaked the directives said, “You are basically taking the occupation out of the coverage, which is the actual core of the conflict.”
US news outlets were crippled by these verbal restrictions, incapable of offering an accurate explanation of what was happening in Gaza by imposing such constraints on humanitarian language, and international principles and laws.
Media frames are based on underlying assumptions, articulated through familiar tropes that appear unquestioned in language and representation. Some stories are recognizable as reflections of beliefs and myths, and others are accurate renderings when accompanied by on-the-ground documentation.
Seasoned journalists entrusted to cover such a monumental conflict seemed not to be schooled in the differences. They failed to identify the history and uses of atrocity stories as propaganda, and showed no awareness of the use of Islamophobic tropes such as the “brutish knife-wielding Arab terrorist,” or the West’s long history of Orientalism and the hypersexualized Arab male, as identified by Edward Said.
Establishment media applied a “lawlessness” trope, identified by Rebecca Solnit (A Paradise Built in Hell, 2009) as a dictate of convention to blame the victims of humanitarian disasters, when in fact in such crises, she argued, communities come together to help one another. The lawlessness frame was used to direct the causes of starvation away from Israel’s engineered famine, and point the finger of blame at starving Palestinians, who were being shot by IDF snipers as they looked for food.
By April 2024, when police were called to break up student encampments, media relied on another powerful framing device, complete with its attendant language, to condone police violence against students at colleges and universities, first at Columbia, then at other campuses around the country. Campuses, they said, had been infiltrated by “outside agitators” (FAIR.org, 5/9/24).
Yet the critical debate articulated by student protests was part of American public discourse at the time. Though they were violently attacked by pro-Israel protesters and US law enforcement, students helped move American sentiment about the genocide to the center of cultural and political debate. By the fall of 2024, students would be hit by a wave of repression and attacks on their civil liberties and rights to freedom of expression.
Were these stereotypes taken into consideration when deciding which stories would be told, which talking points would be followed, and which perspectives would be ignored? Many of the narratives we are left with, used to explain this so-called “Israel/Palestine conflict,” are familiar media constructs and simply cannot explain a genocide.
In so many ways, big media failed to provide accurate information about Israel’s bombing attacks and their consequences on the people in Gaza. They improvised a language of confusion, denial and justification.
A combination of media tropes and frames, together with verbal inventions, downplayed Israel’s increasingly brutal genocidal violence, along with the hollow echoes that explained away every military act of violence, as the media served as “stenographers to power.” These strategies facilitated the continuation of a genocide. The failure to accurately cover the destruction of Gaza was inimical to the basic professional canons of journalism.
Genocide does not happen without a language to incite it. From collective punishment to ethnic cleansing, and the destruction of infrastructure to the withholding of food, water and medical care, Israel continually committed war crimes on a much greater scale than the initial Hamas attacks. Such acts depended on the demonization of an entire people, and the undervaluing of Palestinian life was a major feature of US reporting.
In Gaza, in addition to dismantling civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, Israel also carried out the destruction of cultural heritage sites, universities, schools and mosques, acts of destruction understood to deliberately eliminate an entire group of people defined by their ethnicity, religion, culture and identity. These are the crimes of genocide. Yet the words associated with these crimes were rarely if ever used in establishment media reporting on Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …
Palantir, a US data analytics company backed in its early years by In-Q-Tel, now plays a central role in the NHS’s £330 million Federated Data Platform. Supporters say it could improve planning and efficiency, while critics have raised questions about governance, transparency and trust. Here’s what you need to know.
1. What is Palantir and what does it do?
Palantir is a large American technology company, specialising in storing large data collections and providing tools to manage the data, in particular artificial intelligence (AI) to ask questions of it. It provides decision-making platforms, such as Foundry, which government organisations and businesses use to uncover patterns, manage operations, and support planning and decision-making.
2. Why is a private American company involved in managing NHS medical records?
That’s not how Palantir views it. It sees itself as providing a platform on which the NHS can store and analyse NHS medical records. And that wouldn’t be exceptional. A large amount of data from across society is stored on cloud platforms provided by American companies.
Some of the discussion is about whether Palantir is really less trustworthy than, say, Microsoft, Google or Amazon.
3. Who gave Palantir this contract, and was it put out to open tender?
Palantir had been lobbying to get access to NHS data for a while when it offered to build a COVID data store for £1 in early 2020; there was no open competition under emergency COVID procurement rules. The data store combined patient-level data from many sources, as well as operational data from hospitals and other sources.
The latest version of this deal, the Federated Data Platform, was awarded competitively in December 2023 to a Palantir-led consortium. Having had the deal previously will have been a big advantage for Palantir – a phenomenon known as “vendor lock-in”.
4. Can Palantir use my data for its own commercial purposes or share it with the US government?
Palantir’s role is as a “data processor”, which means it is not legally allowed to make its own decisions about what to do with the data – only the “data controllers” (NHS organisations) can.
So it is not legally allowed to use NHS data for their own purposes. And although UK regulators, such as the Information Commissioner’s Office, have oversight powers, some critics question how effectively large multinational technology providers can be audited in practice.
Trust plays an important role, particularly at a time when we have seen US government appropriating databases relating, for example, to health, mobile phone location and car number plates, for immigration enforcement. Under the US Cloud Act, American authorities can, under certain legal conditions, request data from US-based companies, which has raised concerns among privacy advocates about potential cross-border access.
5. What is the Federated Data Platform, and what is it supposed to do for the NHS?
There has long been an NHS England ambition to have a central place to store “all” NHS data. The core of this was effectively realised quickly during COVID, under special legislation, in two forms with slightly different targets.
The first was the NHS COVID-19 Data Store, which has grown into the Federated Data Platform, and is targeted more towards planning. The second is OpenSafely, which provides research access to unified NHS datasets using strong privacy protections.
6. Has the system improved NHS care, and is the taxpayer getting value for money?
The UK government has already made claims of significant improvements due to Palantir. But researchers have raised doubts both about the research methods used to quantify such successes and about the personal connections of the people involved in these.
7. What is Palantir’s track record — who else does it work for, and should that concern me?
It works with several other UK government organisations, including the army. The Israeli army reportedly used Palantir for AI-based targeting in the war in Gaza, which is a main reason Amnesty International campaigned against Palantir within the NHS.
8. Can I opt my data out? If so, how?
You can opt out of your GP practice sharing your health data, or separately out of NHS England and others sharing it for research and planning.
Unfortunately, this would affect beneficial uses of your health data too, including by making the overall dataset less comprehensive and representative. This is part of why the medical community worries about the Palantir effect.
9. Why are so many doctors, nurses and campaigners opposed to this — and should I be worried too?
There is a wide range of concerns. Palantir’s political positioning, including opposing the NHS in its current form, as well as the more controversial political views expressed by some of its leaders, means many people don’t trust it with their health data.
There is a technological concern over concentrating NHS data processing with a single supplier, possibly replacing working solutions with inferior ones. For some people, Palantir’s activity with ICE and allegedly in Gaza makes them morally unacceptable.
10. Could the government cancel the contract, and what would happen to the data Palantir already holds if it did?
There is a break clause in the current contract coming up, so yes, it can. The contract says Palantir needs to lose all access to the data when the contract ends.
Responding to Conservative MP Wendy Morton’s call for more scrutiny of Palantir’s ability to protect data, Louis Mosley, Palantir UK’s executive vice-chair, told the BBC that he welcomed scrutiny and was confident the firm was delivering value for money for NHS patients.
Mosley went on to say that Palantir has no interest in patient data in the UK. “It’s not our business model,” he said. “It’s not the legal basis on which we operate, in the same way that Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word or email is used in the NHS and again that is NHS data, Microsoft doesn’t have access to it, nor do we to NHS data.”
Defence Secretary John Healey (left) and the CEO of software company Palantir Technologies Alex Karp sign a £1.5 billion investment, at Wellington Conference Room, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London, September 18, 2025
THE “revolving door” between US tech firm Palantir and the British government raises serious questions about public contracts, campaigners warned today.
Dozens of experienced British public officials including the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and NHS’s AI chiefs have joined the controversial US tech firm Palantir since they left their government positions, a new investigation by the Nerve revealed.
At least 32 officials, former ministers, intelligence service chiefs and peers have taken up roles in the company which has been awarded £670 million in government contracts.
This included the former MoD senior official on AI, Laurence Lee, who also co-authored the military’s strategy document on the new technology.
Mr Lee has since become a senior adviser to Palantir CEO Alex Karp on “geostrategy.”
NHS England’s former director of AI, Indra Joshi, became Palantir’s director of health, research and AI in 2022 before leaving in 2024.
Four members of the House of Lords have also been on Palantir’s payroll, including the former chair of the select committee on science and technology.
On top of the previously reported relationship between the disgraced former US ambassador Peter Mandelson and Palantir, other peers who offered their expertise to the US tech firm include former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson and former special adviser to Gordon Brown, John Woodcock.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn’t know anything about democracy.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accepted more than half a million pounds from foreign companies, governments, and donors while serving as an MP, DeSmog can reveal.
Since July 2024, when he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Clacton, Farage has received almost £2 million in income and gifts, with £675,000 coming from foreign sources. Of Farage’s 28 benefactors, 20 are based abroad (71 percent).
This comes amid growing scrutiny of the foreign influences on British democracy following attempts by the Labour government to clamp down on overseas donations to UK political parties.
Farage’s largest foreign income stream has been Cameo – the U.S. platform where celebrities record videos for money – earning £222,000 on the site since being elected to Parliament. Farage has now deleted his profile on the platform after a Guardian investigation found he had sold Cameo videos repeating extremist slogans and endorsing a neo-Nazi event.
This income has been received on top of Farage’s £94,000 a year public salary.
Labour’s chair Anna Turley said: “Nigel Farage rarely turns up to do his actual job. Yet he finds time to jet off around the world on his donor’s private plane and trouser half a million quid while families struggle. Reform are not on your side. They’re just in it for themselves.”
A version of this article was published by The Mirror.
The Reform leader has also been paid for a range of foreign speaking events, including £40,000 to address Nomad Capitalist Live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in September 2024. Nomad Capitalist, which is based in Hong Kong, advises the super rich on how to cut their tax bills.
Farage has also received gifts from foreign governments. As revealed by DeSmog, the Abu Dhabi government provided tickets and hospitality worth £10,000 for Farage to attend the local Formula One Grand Prix in December.
“At a time when trust in politics is at rock bottom, the public deserves absolute confidence that their MPs are working solely in service of their constituents and their country, not dancing to the tune of foreign interests,” said Kamila Kingstone, senior campaign lead at Spotlight on Corruption.
“Cases like this make it painfully clear that transparency alone is not enough and that the current system leaves far too much room for foreign influence. The government urgently needs to impose tougher limits on MPs’ second jobs and on the gifts and payments they are allowed to accept, so that public service cannot be overshadowed by private gain.”
Despite claiming to represent working-class voters, Farage – the UK’s highest-paid MP – has also received private jet trips worth £85,000 from major Reform donor Christopher Harborne. A billionaire cryptocurrency investor, Harborne is based in Thailand, where he has lived for over 20 years.
Farage is a major backer of cryptocurrencies, and has £215,000 invested in a UK Bitcoin treasury, Stack BTC – owned by Paul Withers, who runs the gold exchange Direct Bullion, which has paid Farage more than £500,000 since he became an MP. Farage’s Stack BTC shares have reportedly doubled in value since he bought them, largely due to the fanfare around his investment.
Harborne is Reform’s biggest donor, having given £12 million to the party last year and more than £22 million since 2019. However, his contributions to the party are now in jeopardy after Labour introduced new rules that cap donations from overseas residents to £100,000 a year.
Earlier this month, crypto entrepreneur and right-wing philanthropist Ben Delo said he had given £4 million to Reform and would be moving back to the UK in order to circumvent the government’s new donation rules.
“Farage is bought and paid for by vested interests,” Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward said. “Clearly, his disdain for foreign people does not extend to those who want to give him money to advance his hateful agenda. He loves open borders when it comes to cash!”
Reform UK is the UK’s leading anti-climate party, with several of its senior figures – including Farage – denying basic climate science. The Reform leader has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, while his deputy Richard Tice has called it “plant food”.
Of the £1.3 million earned by Farage from UK sources, a number are closely connected to overseas interests. GB News, Farage’s largest single source of income, is co-owned by the Legatum Group – a Dubai-based investment vehicle – and hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, whose firm is 40 percent owned by U.S. private equity giant KKR.
Reform and Farage were approached for comment.
Foreign Influences on Farage
Reform has close connections to a number of foreign regimes and influential overseas interests.
Farage is one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s most vocal European allies, having repeatedly campaigned for his election – including in 2016, when Farage was the first foreign politician to be given an audience with Trump following his presidential victory.
Farage is also well connected in Trump’s MAGA movement.
“He’s seen as the elder statesman. He almost has senator status. If England were the 51st state, Nigel Farage would be one of the senators,” one of his longstanding friends, Raheem Kassam, told the New Statesman in December.
As documented by DeSmog, Farage has been helping the Heartland Institute – an influential pro-Trump climate science denial group – to extend its influence in the UK and Europe.
The Heartland Institute was one of the groups behind Project 2025 – the authoritarian blueprint for Trump’s second term, convened by the Heritage Foundation.
According to The Spectator, key people from Project 2025 “have been shuttling between London and Washington” to give their advice to Farage.
And the Reform leader has earned thousands from MAGA events since he became an MP.
In the past year, Farage has been paid more than £11,000 to speak at Hillsdale College – a conservative university in Michigan – and nearly £28,000 to speak at the ‘Club for Growth’, a lobby group that has endorsed and campaigned for Trump.
Farage has also racked up donor-funded flights worth at least £150,000 to speak at pro-Trump events since he was elected to Parliament, and has received £47,000 from Trump-donating U.S. tech giants X Corp, Google, and Meta.
But Trump’s America is not the only foreign regime with financial ties to Farage and his party.
In addition to the F1 hospitality given to Farage by the Abu Dhabi government in December, other senior figures in Reform are in business with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, December 2025.
Credit: Nigel Farage / X
In October 2024, the party’s treasurer Nick Candy entered into a “strategic joint venture partnership” with Modon Holding – a real estate company owned by the Abu Dhabi government – via his firm Candy Capital. He has also partnered with the state-owned Dubai World Trade Centre to develop “super-prime” properties on the site.
Meanwhile, Reform’s Nadhim Zahawi – a former Tory minister who defected to Farage’s party in January – is a senior figure at Omniyat, a luxury property developer in Dubai. Farage convened a group of prospective patrons in Dubai earlier this year in an attempt to convince them to donate to the party.
As a result, campaigners are urging the government to close the political finance loopholes that allow foreign regimes and big money interests to shape UK policy.
“An MP’s only real job should be representing their constituents,” said Tom Brake, director of the campaign group Unlock Democracy. “Yet sadly, for some MPs, supplementing their own income appears to have greater appeal.
“This is bad enough, but what is even more concerning is when MPs receive income from foreign sources, particularly foreign governments or organisations closely aligned with them. These financial relationships always risk giving undue influence and leverage to foreign entities, which UK legislators should avoid at all costs.”
In March, the Rycroft Review was released, a government report from former Foreign Office permanent secretary Philip Rycroft, which summarised the threats to British democracy from overseas actors.
“This country faces a persistent problem of foreign interests seeking to exert influence on, and to interfere in, our politics,” Rycroft said. “Too much of this is malign and seeks to sow distrust and exacerbate divisions in UK society, with the ultimate aim of undermining confidence in our democracy… If government does not act swiftly to gear up to counter these threats, there is a real risk they will run away from us.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Defence Secretary John Healey (left) and the CEO of software company Palantir Technologies Alex Karp sign a £1.5 billion investment, at Wellington Conference Room, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London, September 18, 2025
