Starmer’s Digital ID plans are too toxic even for Oswald Mosley’s grandson and Palantir

Louis Mosley is the head of Palantir in the UK & Europe. Responding to speculation that the data firm would work with the UK’s Labour government to implement Digital ID, Mosley has now confirmed this will not be the case. The given reason is that Labour is curtailing ‘democracy’ by implementing this monumental policy without having listed it in their 2024 manifesto.

Even Palantir don’t want Labour’s big data from Digital ID plans

As we’ve covered, Palantir is a US company which specialises in data services and spy tech. Co-founder Peter Thiel is a prominent Trump donor with links to the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have reported on Palantir’s links to mass-surveillance. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, meanwhile, has covered the “strategic partnership” between Palantir and Israel, referencing AI tools which ‘enable Israel’s attacks on Palestinians’.

As reported by the National, Mosley said Palantir:

had “a policy that we will help democratically elected governments implement the policies they have been elected to deliver”, but added that since digital IDs were not on the Labour Party’s manifesto for the 2024 general election and therefore hasn’t seen “a clear resounding public support at the ballot box”, it “isn’t one for” Palantir.

Mosley went on to say that he had “personal concerns” over the scheme and the potential abuses it could face, as well as the “technical necessity” for its implementation.

“We have all had the experience of engaging with parts of government where the online experience leaves something to be desired. It needs improvement”, he added.

In line with other critics, Mosley highlighted that UK already has multiple forms of ID, flagging the potential for misuse.

As reported by the Canary, the petition to stop Digital ID is the fourth largest in UK history; it’s also still growing.

While the government has said the scheme will prevent ‘shadow economies’ of illegal labour, they also highlighted an already-implemented Digital ID scheme in Estonia. This proved controversial, as Estonia’s shadow economy is more than twice the size of the UK’s:

Mosley

Palantir boss Louis Mosley is the grandson of the fascist politician and aristocrat Oswald Mosley. History Extra reported the following on Oswald and his British Union of Fascists (BUF):

He was Britain’s most notorious fascist, known for his violent anti-Semitic rhetoric and for maintaining friendships with the likes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

They added:

The BUF held a vast number of marches, meetings, and public rallies. Some of the largest were held in 1934, including Olympia in London; the Albert Hall; Hyde Park; and Belle Vue Gardens in Manchester. These meetings were often met with anti-fascist resistance. In fact, around 60 per cent of BUF meetings in London in 1936 saw some form of organised resistance. On 7 June 1934, a rally at Olympia in London was infiltrated by several hundred anti-fascists with forged tickets. They heckled Mosley and were forcibly ejected. Many suffered fierce treatment in the foyer before being thrown out on the street, with several requiring hospital treatment. Public reaction to that violence was indignant, and membership and press support for the BUF were negatively impacted.

While Louis Mosley has not labelled himself a ‘fascist’, critics of Palantir have accused it of facilitating racialised policies, as reported by openDemocracy in 2021:

Palantir has attracted controversy for its involvement with the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which is responsible for the removal of undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration tasked the ICE with increasing deportations, leading to a spike in the number of people being held in deportation centres.

The agency has been repeatedly accused of racial profiling and violations of human rights. Palantir has provided technology for ICE’s systems that was used to “execute harmful policies targeting migrants and asylum-seekers”, according to Amnesty International.

The human rights group found that the tech company’s software was used to plan the arrest of hundreds of people and the separation of children from their parents.

Amnesty concluded that Palantir failed “to put an adequate due diligence process in place” and “to meet its responsibility to respect human rights”.

Louis Mosley spoke favourably of “the return of Donald Trump” in February. In the same speech, he spoke of the need for “free speech”:

Revolution is sweeping the Western world. The return of Donald Trump, @JDVance’s message to Europe, the rise of populist movements in the UK and elsewhere…

The tech advantage is shifting from Establishment to insurgent.

A thread on what these changes mean for us. 1/ pic.twitter.com/pk2hfunwpH

— Louis Mosley (@louismosley) February 21, 2025

Mosley also said:

In the US, we are seeing innovation and reform that will change lives in that country for the better.

There’s no reason we cannot have the same in Britain – and elsewhere across Europe.

Since Mosley said this, the Trump administration has launched a crackdowns on free speech and civil liberties which are unprecedented in American history. ICE are instrumental to Trump’s plan, with Palantir serving as a key partner to the enforcement agency.

Featured image Keir Starmer (YouTube) / Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (YouTube)