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Demonstration Against US Military Company Contract With The NHS Takes Place In London

Ignored by UK TV News Media, but reported by Foreign News Stations

It says more about UK TV news outlets and it's blanket ban on reporting anything to do with NHS Privatisation, when we can learn far more about what is going on in the UK by watching foreign TV News stations such as France 24 News. TRT News, and Al Jazeera News.

Across the print news papers in the Middle East, you can also read about the latest demonstration against NHS privatisation, but this time in particular on how the UK Government has given a £330 million contract to an American Military company with blood on its hands that is specialising in spy-ware and citizen surveillance technology for the US, Israeli, and UK Governments; to develope and control a database of NHS Patients medical records!

This headline in the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, has to be not only embarrassing on the world stage, but total anathema to the principles on which the NHS was founded:

"An American company specialising in AI-powered military and surveillance technology that is supporting Israel’s war in Gaza has been awarded a contract by England's National Health Service to handle patient data."

Palantir has made its support for Israel clear in a letter to all shareholders, as can be seen in the image at the end of this article.

It is actively involved with the systemic arrests of Palestinians living in the Occupied West Bank and the destruction of roads and homes.

Further, it is providing the Israeli war machine with surveillance technology both before and after the Hamas attack on 7th October, which is technology supporting the aims of the IDF to level the whole of the Gaza area and make it in habitable and with no working hospitals.

As such, Palantir is providing technology to enable Israel to destroy hospitals, medical facilities, and all infrastructure required to sustain human beings in the Strip.

Is a company that profits from war and the destruction of healthcare in Gaza, a fit partner for the NHS, it's patients, and UK society?

Ignored by UK TV News, the demonstration that took place yesterday, Thursday 21st December in London outside the HQ of Palantir, posed that same question and demanded the British Government and NHS England removes Palantir from any involvement in the NHS which they first started during the Ovid years.

Even then Palantir was supporting the every day human rights violations of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and supporting illegal settlers in their attacks on Palestinian farmers, and land.

The country needs to be alerted to the involvement of a military tech companywithin the NHS by reporting on the demonstration which focused on Palantir's support for the killing of over 20,000 unarmed and innocent women and children.

As with everything else being done to the NHS in order to privatise it and turn it into either a two tier care system, forcing patients to go private, or fully privatise it by transferring the expertise in surgery and healthcare, to private providers; the UK media ignores what is going on via an apparent blanket ban on reporting even changes to legislation and the introduction of the US system of Accountable Care Organisations aka Integrated Care Systems and Integrated Care Boards that are hell bent on rationing healthcare and cutting the number of hospitals providing healthcare.

Unlike the UK TV news media, the print media did provide some coverage of the demonstration outside of Palantir's London HQ. The Independent quoted some of those attending and the reasons why:

Dozens of pro-Palestine protesters and health workers gathered at Palantir’s UK headquarters on Soho Square early on Thursday morning, where they accused the firm of being “complicit” in war crimes.

They held placards reading, “Palantir aids apartheid” and chanted, “Palantir – blood on your hands”.

In an explanation that comes straight from a Big Brother scenario, 'predictive policing' accuses citizens of 'intending to break the law' in advance of them doing so. With no proof they ever had an intention to do so. Effectively policing via 'thought reading'!

Alia Al Ghussain, a British human rights researcher whose uncle was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, claimed Palantir provides “predictive policing” to Israel. The 32-year-old, who is of Palestinian descent, said: “Palantir provides intelligence and surveillance services to the Israeli military, including a form of predictive policing.

“That’s not just going to affect people in Gaza but those in the West Bank, which is under occupation and has seen a huge rise in violence since October 7th.

“The NHS is probably the best thing about this country, it’s really an expression of our common humanity."

“Palantir is totally antithetical to that. I don’t think it has any place in the NHS.”

Jessica, a nurse and member of Health Workers for a Free Palestine, said:

“It should be unthinkable for the NHS to do grubby deals with a company which is complicit in, and profiting from, Israel’s systematic destruction of healthcare facilities, resulting in the killing of more healthcare workers in the last ten weeks than the total number killed in all countries in conflict globally last year."

She added:

“The entire purpose of the NHS is the preservation of life. As health workers we cannot turn a blind eye to the health service being implicated in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the slaughter of our colleagues – fellow nurses, doctors, dentists, medical students and other health workers – and their patients.

We’re here to blockade and disrupt Palantir’s blood-soaked business, and we will continue mobilising until NHS England agrees to keep our NHS data out of bloodstained hands.”

Steve Brine, chairman of the Health and Social Care Committee and a Tory MP, was quoted in the press last month commenting on the then proposals to award Palantir along with 3 other companies a contract to establish and maintain the NHS' new central database of NHS Patient medical data as saying there were “substantial concerns” about the company’s involvement with the NHS.

He called for “more transparency and better communication about what this platform will do and how their data will be used”.

Predictably, Louis Mosley, Palantir’s executive vice-president for the UK and Europe, previously defended the company’s involvement in the NHS.

“Data security and the ability to precisely control who can see what information can be a matter of life and death,” he told the Times.

He said that the “software enables NHS professionals to bring together data that a hospital already holds in multiple different systems that haven’t historically been able to talk to each other, while ensuring that staff only see information if they need to, in order to do their job”.

Source: Al Jazeera / Middle East Eye / Palantir / Business & Human Rights Centre / The Independent

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