A LABOUR MP has accused former party deputy leader Tom Watson of making an “implicit threat” after he sent him a letter detailing his repeated criticism of controversial tech firm Palantir.
Clive Lewis said the letter, sent after Watson joined Palantir as its UK senior vice-president earlier this month, gave him the impression: “We are watching you. We are monitoring you.”
Watson wrote to the Norwich South MP after Lewis criticised his decision to join the US data analytics company in an article for The Guardian.
In the letter, Watson detailed Lewis’s interventions on Palantir, writing: “By my count, you’ve spoken about Palantir almost 130 times since 2020; around 50 in the past year alone.”
Lewis read extracts from the letter during a Labour conference fringe event organised by tech non-profit The Citizens on Monday.
He later told The Nerve: “It’s an incredibly defensive response. There’s a level of detail there that I didn’t even know. That, to me, was an implicit threat.
“They’re saying: ‘We are watching you. We are monitoring you. And that’s what we do. Your card is marked’.
“Honestly, it feels very Palantir. Very Big Brother.”
He went on: “They have access to my health records. What else do they have access to? And how could they use it?”
Lewis added that the intervention had given him “a reason to fight harder for democracy”.
Palantir has been accused of selling services to the Israeli Defence Forces and “profiting from genocide” in Gaza, according to UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
In the UK, Palantir is currently suing London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office after he blocked a £50 million contract with the Metropolitan Police.
Andy Burnham, meanwhile, is under significant pressure from Labour MPs and unions to ditch Palantir from government contracts.
Watson, who was Labour deputy leader between 2015 and 2019, announced earlier this month that he was joining Palantir, which has secured major contracts across the UK public sector.
Upon accepting the position – in which he works alongside UK and Europe chief executive Louis Mosley, grandson of British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley – Watson described Palantir as “the most interesting company on the planet”, and hit out at “propaganda” against the firm.
His appointment has faced criticism, with the Scottish Greens previously calling for him to be expelled from the House of Lords over what they described as a “serious conflict of interest”.
Watson has said he has taken a long-term leave of absence from the Lords in order to take up his role at Palantir.
However, Lewis said Watson’s argument that he had taken a leave of absence was a “smokescreen”.
“He hasn’t burned his contacts book,” Lewis said. “He understands how the system works and where the bodies are buried. Palantir aren’t the good guys. I think it’s really important people pick a side.
"You need to either commit yourself to public service or you need to commit yourself to working for them, and you can’t do both and you shouldn’t do both.”
