Attendees of the summit agreed councils should campaign for a restoration of local government funding to 2010 levels and that local government debts should be scrapped. (Picture: David B Young)
Some 250 people met in Hackney, east London on Wednesday for an anti-austerity summit hosted by the Green-run council in the borough.
They included councillors from the Greens and Labour, as well as trade union activists and campaigners.
Attendees agreed that councils should campaign for a restoration of local government funding to 2010 levels and that local government debts should be scrapped.
But there was a debate about whether councillors should refuse to implement austerity or whether “balanced budgets” are the only sensible option in the here and now.
Jordan, the Unison union branch secretary at Homerton Hospital, said, “I think it’s really important that councils refuse to implement budget cuts.
“We need people we’ve elected to be brave and do this—the more that do the same, the more influence that it will have. I’ve supported NHS members being made redundant due to Hackney council reducing what they are prepared to pay for a service. I’ve seen my daughter go through having her school closed last year.
“We have power in our workplaces, that we need to be prepared to use by striking, and when services are under threat, we’ve also seen that occupations can stop services being taken away.”
Jordan added that outsourced workers winning sick pay at the hospital had a big impact on racial equality.
“Racism is used to divide the workforce—we need to be together to effectively fight back,” she said.
But Green mayor Zoe Garbett has said the Hackney council is committed to setting a balanced budget. She argued at the event that setting a no-cuts budget would mean the central government would send commissioners in to take over the running of the council.
One of the most recent examples of commissioners being sent in is Birmingham, when the council faced bankruptcy.
They were met with very little resistance. But things would have looked very different if the trade union movement and community campaigns had mobilised mass resistance including ballots for strikes.
This could have challenged councillors to stand with those fighting back.
Attendees at the event agreed to set up local anti-austerity groups in different areas.
They also resolved to support the day of action on 1 October against spy tech firm Palantir, which is muscling its way into the NHS and local councils as well as the protest in London against austerity on the eve of budget day.
Ken Muller, one of the organisers of the budget day protest, told Socialist Worker, “We have the backing of the trade council, the NEU union branch and two Unison union branches.
“Lots of people took the leaflets and offered to help get support from their union branch. It’s not just a one-off demo, it’s a springboard for further action.”
Chancellor John Healey gave the project of building a third runway his backing this week (Photo: Flickr)
Despite the summer of drought and scorching heat, the Labour government looks set to press ahead with a misguided Heathrow airport expansion project. It will turn up the heat on climate breakdown and cost us all.
On Tuesday, chancellor John Healey gave the project of building a third runway his backing. In answer to a question in the House of Commons, he said, “After years of delay, years of indecision, years of often vexatious challenge, we have given the go-ahead to this project.”
“The economic case stacks up and it will help bring growth,” the chancellor claimed.
It doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. The consultation on the third runway closed earlier this month and it will need to be debated and voted on.
Paul Beckford from the No 3rd Runway Coalition told Socialist Worker the government is driving us in the wrong direction by considering a third runway.
“Even without Heathrow we would struggle to meet our climate targets. It will make it really difficult to achieve,” he said.
“It will benefit the wealthy few who fly frequently,” he added. “And mean massive costs for local communities.”
The project will mean 781 homes are destroyed and a further 5,500 are rendered uninhabitable. Remaining residents will be impacted by aircraft noise and the already dangerously polluted air will become even more toxic.
Local residents say that letters from Heathrow Airport that talk about home relocation are creating anxiety, especially when plans are not approved yet.
Eilish Stone, from Harmondsworth in west London, said, “I want to stay in my home and don’t want a 3rd runway, but I am equally sick to the back teeth of receiving disturbing letters from Heathrow.
“It feels a bit like harassment, which causes stress and anxiety. They are after information which is not required at this stage and are misleading residents into thinking they are about to get bought out.”
“The third runway project has been sold as a project for jobs and growth. But according to the government’s own figures it doesn’t do that,” said Paul.
It is projected to add 0.05 percent to GDP by 2056 according to the Department for Transport. But this tiny increase will be offset by a net loss to the economy of up to £60 billion.
“It will be a £1 billion cost to society every year for 60 years. It’s not delivering growth at all.”
The government wants to invest in Heathrow as part of its plan to make Britain a more competitive destination for jet-setting business people.
Some unions, including Unite and the GMB, also support the plans.
But Paul said there are better ways of creating jobs. He explained that the plans would support some jobs in construction while the new runway is being built.
“But we want sustainable, long-term, well paid jobs for the future,” he told Socialist Worker. “That means building rail links and public transport as opposed to flogging these outdated 20th century technologies.”
As climate breakdown leads to thousands of deaths and threatens a food crisis, unions and campaigners should demand that Labour puts ordinary people’s lives before the profits of a few and cancel its third runway plans.
Workers at the Oxford University Press (OUP) publishing house began nine days of strikes on Tuesday of last week.
The 30 Unite union members, who work at the finance operations department, are fighting bosses’ plans to offshore their jobs.
Almost 50 workers’ jobs are at risk in two waves of redundancy—one on Halloween, the other on New Year’s Eve.
“It’s absolutely shameful that the OUP management have decided to offshore their jobs,” Naomi Gravett, Unite South East regional officer told Socialist Worker on the picket line.
“Oxford University Press don’t need to do this,” Gravett continued. “They’ve got plenty of money and it’s just again showing they prize profit over their people.”
OUP is reportedly the largest and wealthiest university press in the world. It made profits of almost £50 million last year and has almost a third of a billion pounds in the bank.
CEO Nigel Portwood made over £1 million last year.
“My message to OUP is overturn this decision,” Gravett said.
Join the picket lines at the OUP Walton Street main entrance, 7.30am-10am and 12pm-1.30pm. Solidarity can boost their fight.
By Geoff Taylor
School strikers stand up to bosses in west London
As students returned to classrooms, workers in a west London school struck in defiance of bosses who forced through a new contract.
On Tuesday, around 25 members of the NEU education union at the Woodfield School in Brent picketed in the pouring rain.
The workers have signed contracts with the bosses—Compass Learning Partnership—who threatened fire and rehire.
Compass has long wanted to cut the pay of 47 support workers at the school by up to almost £4,000 a year.
“Each and every one of them signed under protest,” Lucy, joint branch secretary of Brent NEU, said. “Fire and rehire is one of the bosses’ dirtiest tricks.
“I want to say how proud I am of NEU members for standing up to the bosses’ bullying.
“In the face of one attack after another, workers have stuck together—support staff and teachers striking for over 40 days in the last year alone.
The workers have 4 further strike dates announced—on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week and on 22 and 23 September.
They are right to fight—and need your solidarity.
Picket lines at the Woodfield School, Glenwood Ave, London NW9 7L7, from 7.30am
Strikes aren’t last resort at Butlin’s
Butlin’s workers in Bognor Regis are set to escalate their action if bosses don’t address their concerns about pay and safety on the holiday resort on the Sussex coast.
The resort safety officers, who are UVW union members, plan to strike again from Thursday to Tuesday of next week and continuously from
21 September.
The UVW members are asking for their pay to be raised to £14 per hour.
One of the strikers said, “We’ve raised reasonable demands about equipment that doesn’t work and short staffing on the team on this huge resort.
“We’ve not been listened to at all.
“The fact that they have refused to even engage with us shows exactly what they think.”
NHS supply drivers slam brakes on low pay offer
Nearly 200 lorry drivers employed by GXO, a supply chain contractor for the NHS, are being balloted for strikes, in a dispute over pay.
Unite union members at GXO in Alfreton, in Derbyshire, Bridgwater, in Somerset, Normanton, in West Yorkshire, Maidstone, in Kent, Rugby, in Warwickshire, Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk, and Washington, in Tyne and Wear, are taking part in the ballot, which closes on 17 September.
A strike could disrupt the NHS supply chains across the country.
The workers rejected a 4 percent offer from GXO bosses.
The logistics firm runs the NHS supply chain for Supply Chain Coordination Limited (SCCL), part of NHS England.
Ward clerks working for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) have scored a major victory over low pay.
The Unison union says a new offer will see a pay increase of more than £2,000 for the most experienced ward clerks, with workers also getting up to three years of back pay.
The improved pay rates at last recognise the additional duties ward clerks took on in 2020 during the pandemic.
The ward clerks walked out on strike last month.
Unison branch secretary Frances Carmichael said, “I could not be prouder of these staff. They refused to give up on getting the recognition they deserve.
“This shows what workers can achieve when they stand together.”
The win comes after a similar victory by district nurses and payroll officers at NHSGGC.
Tags: Health, NEU, Unison, Unite, UVW Posted in News, Trade Unions |
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Protesting at the ministry of housing in London against a planned data centre on Brick Lane
Last Thursday up to 250 people protested at the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh against the mass roll-out of new data centres for artificial intelligence (AI).
Data centres are an environmental catastrophe due to their requirements for energy and water for cooling.
Andrew is part of the campaign against the planned Cato data centre in Auchtertool in Fife, Scotland.
He told Socialist Worker that people came from anti-data centre campaigns from all over Scotland.
“The first protest had about 30 or 40 people so it is gaining momentum,” he said.
Andrew explained that he joined the protest alongside other members of the Dunfermline Creatives Network. The group of artists was there to make the links between the threat to jobs from artificial intelligence and its environmental impacts.
“AI threatens the very existence of artists, filmmakers and everyone in the creative industries—it’s dystopian,” he said. “It’s really important that we support the fight against hyperscale data centres.”
Andrew added that there is some movement from the Scottish government as it has now required companies building data centres to get an environmental impact assessment.
But the protest’s key demand is for a moratorium on new data centres.
The following day, over 200 people protested outside the Ministry of Housing in central London to say no to the data centre on Brick Lane.
The angry, mainly youthful protest was organised by Nijjor Manush, a socialist Bangladeshi and Bengali organisation, who are part of the Save Brick Lane campaign coalition.
There were speakers from Tower Hamlets Council, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Pull the Plug, the Anakbayan Filipino Youth Organisation and London Renters’ Union as well as union banners from PCS, Equity and Tower Hamlets TUC.
Taz from Nijjor Manush led chants of “no dirty data centres” and “Shame Shame” for Angela Rayner who was inside the building.
Rayner signed off the deal for the Brick Lane data centre, overriding the wishes of local residents. Zainab from Nijjor Manush said, “All this talk of localism, devolution, local democracy, Manchesterism—I’m sorry, you’re lying”.
The campaign is demanding a national moratorium on data centre approval and construction and a reversal of the decision to build a data centre in Brick Lane as part of a redevelopment plan for the old Truman Brewery.
There are over 31,000 people on a waiting list for council housing in Tower Hamlets. Campaigners’ own plans show that 350 desperately needed homes could be built on the site. But developers have said they could only build six homes that will be available for social rent. Protesters chanted “social housing, not social cleansing”.
Annie, the PCS branch secretary at the government Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero, told Socialist Worker, “It’s very important to have solidarity between workers having AI forced on them at work, and communities that are also having AI and data centres forced on them and don’t want it either.”
At their workplace, workers are being told it’s mandatory to use AI, then being forced to do 20 percent more work.
Speakers talked about the impact of noise pollution, the drain on electricity and water resources, and who benefits from data centres. Jonathan Purcell, Green Party councillor for Bow East, told the rally, “This is about racism, corporate greed, capitalism”.
He added that “the 20 data centres in the Isle of Dogs use 75 percent of the area’s electricity”.
Over the weekend there was also a protest of about 250 in Norwich, where more than 10,000 people have signed a petition against a proposed data centre located close to three nature reserves.
Meanwhile, over 370 people crammed into the local parish church to support the “No Devon Data Centre” campaign group last Thursday.
Campaigner Ken White explained that public notification of the scheme was only offered in June this year.
The plans require buildings up to 130 feet tall—each the size of Exeter Cathedral, containing around 120,000 computers. In addition, a 96-acre battery park is to be built alongside, comprising 1,700 units the size of shipping containers for 16 million lithium batteries.
Despite the challenges to farming caused by the five recent heatwaves, the data centre and Battery Energy Storage System (Bess) will require millions of gallons of water every day to cool the hardware, with water already in short supply.
Campaigners stressed that this was not a “Nimby” campaign but part of a national and international movement against data centres.
With thanks to Mandy Brown in London and Tony Staunton in Devon
We face Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain and the street movement that looks to the likes of Nazi Tommy Robinson.
The task is immense, but we can turn the tide. First, we should use the violence in Dover and Portsmouth to drive a wedge between the far right and people who buy into anti-migrant racism.
Many people will be having discussions about immigration in their workplace, neighbourhood or community group.
The idea that migrants and refugees are a problem is commonplace, including among people who’d never vote Reform UK.
You may have someone in your workplace who’s always bringing up anti-migrant arguments.
You can now say, “So those are your people shouting about stopping the boats in Dover and Portsmouth?”
They’ll have to back down—or isolate themselves by supporting what most people are repulsed by.
Second, building counter‑protests against the far right remains vital.
Their mobilisations—for example, against refugee hotels—are key to them building up their networks.
If Danny “Tommo” Thomas mobilises again as he did in Portsmouth and Dover, Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) will call a counter-protest
Third, the unity protests called by SUTR in boroughs, towns and cities across Britain are key. Why does marching matter?
In workplaces and communities across Britain, there are tens of thousands of people who are outraged by racism. But the racists are often the most vocal and confident.
An anti-racist march can change the atmosphere—and boost anti-racists’ confidence to take on arguments.
The unity marches are an opportunity to deepen SUTR’s roots. We need new forces in the united front—from trade unions to the Greens and the Palestine movement—to take on the scale of the far right threat.
Third, building Workers Against The Far Right groups is key. Unless we take on racist division inside the working class, we won’t build a movement strong enough to hit back at the bosses and their system.
Let’s mobilise the anti-racist majority.
Tags: Anti-racism Posted in Anti-racism, News |
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‘We’ve got to stand our ground’ (Photo: Guy Smallman)
As schools return across England this week, teaching assistants (TAs) at two north London primary schools launched a fresh wave of strikes.
The Unison union members at Primrose Hill and Richard Cobden primary schools in Camden struck on Monday and Tuesday over pay.
Strikes at Primrose Hill are set to continue all this week.
TAs at Richard Cobden have been out since late last year, with those at Primrose Hill joining the fight this April.
Despite the torrential rain on Tuesday, the spirits of TAs on the picket line at Primrose Hill could not be dampened.
One TA explained to Socialist Worker that they are as committed as ever in their fight for regrading and getting the appropriate pay for the work they do.
“All TAs do the work of someone on pay grade 4. What we’re doing—interventions, working with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) children, sometimes taking over from the teacher—should be paid at grade 4,” she said.
TAs are essential workers who often work one-to-one with some of the most vulnerable children to support their learning and education. Yet they are among the lowest-paid council workers. The TAs are on pay grade 3. The difference between the pay scales is just 23p an hour.
Another TA told Socialist Worker that their role has changed over the years in order to try to plug the gaps in a spiralling school staffing and funding crisis.
“It’s not just this school,” she said. “The government puts more demand on the schools and the schools put more demand on the staff.
“But other schools have got their pay rise. How can it be fair that some people have got it and not everyone? We deserve ours too.”
Workers are defiant and clear that they are tired of hearing the excuse of empty coffers to justify low pay for council workers.
One TA added, “It’s been really hard, the school could’ve responded differently.
“I wish that management had come out and said, ‘We’re on your side and we’re trying to do the best for you.’
“Schools should be going to the councils to say, ‘Our staff really deserve this, can we have a little more money to pay them?’.”
TAs told Socialist Worker that they felt “disrespected”, “unsupported” and “not valued” for the work they do.
But they explained that the parents have been extremely supportive.
“Parents have told us that they are behind us and that they have written letters to the school,” said one TA. “That’s been a boost for us.”
The strike, which coincides with the beginning of the new term, will have a huge impact as new children start school and try to find their feet.
“Of course, we’d love to be inside doing our jobs, but we’ve got to stand our ground.
“We’ve got to do the hard bit now until we win,” she said.
TAs across the country should take inspiration from Camden and join the fightback.
Join the picket lines, Mon-Fri this week, 7.30-9.15am, Primrose Hill School, 40 Princess Rd, London NW1 8JS
Tags: Education, Unison Posted in Trade Unions |
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Thousands of people protested outside parliament as Ed Miliband loyally voted against an immediate ceasefire (Picture: Guy Smallman)
On 15 November 2023 Israeli forces stormed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza where 600 Palestinian health workers, patients and refugees were sheltering.
They demanded over a loudspeaker that all men aged 16 to 40 years old come to the courtyard. They ordered them to surrender—and stripped many naked.
That was the very same day that Ed Miliband chose not to vote for an immediate ceasefire in the House of Commons.
He was a loyal minister in a Labour government that backed Israel’s “right” to cut off water and electricity and kept the arms flowing.
Due to the immense pressure of the Palestine solidarity movement, Labour prime minister Andy Burnham has been forced to announce some action against Israel. He knows that Palestine played a decisive role in breaking Keir Starmer’s premiership.
Miliband, now the foreign secretary, is fronting the shift. He has announced a ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. These settlements are illegal under international law. Unauthorised outposts are even illegal under Israeli law.
Yet settlers use violence and harassment to try to forcibly remove Palestinians from their homes and land. And they are allowed to do so with impunity. Last week, Israeli snipers killed two teenagers, Omar al-Nassan and Khalil Abu Alia, who were trying to resist settlers’ attempts to steal sheep from their village.
The settlement plan unveiled by Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich is intended to divide the West Bank in two and therefore “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.
The Labour government fears that settlements in the West Bank will undermine a “two state solution”.
This was a sham that allowed the West to back Israel while claiming a Palestinian state could one day exist on a small portion of the stolen land.
It is outrageous to accuse Miliband of “Jew hate” for the new sanctions, as US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has done. Not only is Miliband Jewish, but this condemns all Jews by claiming that colonialism is somehow part of what it means to be Jewish.
But this doesn’t mean the Palestine movement should let Miliband off the hook or give the Burnham government left cover.
Where was Miliband during the past three years of genocide in Gaza? Where was he when Israel slaughtered more than 76,000 people? When it bombed 36 hospitals? Or when it left nearly two million people displaced?
British diplomats have privately told US counterparts that the new sanctions on Israeli settlements “are largely symbolic and will have no material impact on Britain’s wider relationship with Israel”.
As Miliband refused to vote for an immediate ceasefire, the then Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal spoke at a thousands-strong protest outside parliament. He said “all Labour MPs” who voted against an immediate ceasefire “should be held accountable”.
The demonstration outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Saturday 26 September is an opportunity to do that.
Let’s demand Labour stop arming Israel, impose a trade embargo and expel the ambassador.
Protesting against Coventry city council’s contract with Palantir
Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of US spy tech firm Palantir has his sights set on the NHS—and that should terrify us all.
Thiel is up to his neck in providing surveillance equipment for the genocidal Israeli military and for Donald Trump’s killer Ice agents. This man should not be allowed anywhere near our NHS.
“Highways create traffic jams, welfare creates poverty, schools make people dumb and the NHS makes people sick,” Thiel said in a speech at the Oxford Union debating society in January 2023.
“In theory, you just rip the whole thing up from the ground and start over.”
Those words weren’t enough to make the Tory government think twice about granting Palantir a £330 million contract in 2023.
The surveillance and artificial intelligence firm was contracted to run the NHS’s Federated Data Platform (FDP). It was designed to bring together information from different hospitals to help with diagnosis and planning services
And, Palantir argued, there was no danger of patients’ private data being misused, because all information on the FDP would be anonymised and so, in theory, untraceable.
The contract with Palantir was set to run until 2030. But there is a break clause written into the contract that could be triggered as early as March 2027.
As details of the deal with Palantir have come to light, there are increasingly loud calls for the contract to be cancelled.
This is not just down to concerns about patients’ rights to privacy. The tech firm’s involvement with Ice in the US and the Israeli military have also caused outrage.
But Andy Burnham’s Labour government won’t be pressured into cancelling the contract without a fight.
Socialist Worker spoke to activists and trade unionists involved in campaigns against Palantir about their opposition to Thiel and his tech firm—and, crucially, how we can beat them.
Since the contract was signed, more than half of NHS hospital trusts in England have adopted the FDP. But it’s not been taken up without opposition.
Jordan, branch secretary of Unison at the Homerton Hospital in Hackney, east London, spoke to Socialist Worker about the campaign against Palantir in her workplace.
“As trade unionists, we’ve written to the management of the hospital several times, demanding that they stop using this software. Their response is that there are some elements of it that have been implemented already, and others that haven’t been adopted yet.
“But what I want to stress is that Unison members in this hospital were against Palantir in the first place.
“And it’s a fight we’ve kept up. Only yesterday, we sent another letter to the hospital management, demanding that they stop using Palantir’s software.
“That wasn’t from Unison alone, but from every trade union active at Homerton—the BMA and Unite as well.”
Jordan is convinced that the letter writing campaign has had an effect.
“We think the trust is uncomfortable with the whole situation. And that’s more and more the case as details about Palantir have come to light since the deal was signed,” she explained.
The absence of any scrutiny over the contract being signed in the first place was shocking to Jordan and her co-workers.
“At this hospital, when any contractor is brought in to do work, there’s a pretty rigorous process that’s gone through. Recently, for example, the hospital put out a contract for a new catering provider.
“Four different companies put their offers in, they were scrutinised and we were invited to go to meetings to hear what they were offering.
“Now, I should stress that I don’t agree with outsourcing. But at least there was a pretty transparent process in this case.
“But with Palantir, which is a huge contract, there was no competition, no scrutiny whatsoever by the government. That was absolutely shocking,” Jordan explained
And it’s become even more shocking as a clearer picture of Palantir and its dealings with the British state have come to light.
After Keir Starmer entered 10 Downing Street in July 2024, figures in the Labour government continued to work closely with Palantir.
Britain’s ambassador to the US at the time was Peter Mandelson, an associate of deceased and disgraced billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson lobbied for Thiel’s company, which was a client of his Global Counsel lobbying firm.
This included taking then prime minister Keir Starmer for a guided tour of Palantir’s offices in Washington, DC, in February 2025.
But it’s not just dodgy dealings that are fuelling the campaign against Palantir in the Homerton.
Palantir supplies drones to the Israeli military for use in its genocidal war on Palestine.
This is part of a “strategic defence partnership” with Israel which was struck in January 2024.
Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, has stated, proudly, that he is the “most publicly supportive CEO of Israel.”
“I think Israel is on the side of good,” he added.
“Across the NHS as a whole, it has been difficult to campaign around Palestine,” Jordan explained. But because of Palantir’s involvement with the Israeli military, it’s a way to at least start these discussions.”
In addition to the letter writing campaign, there have been days of action and demonstrations for Palestine outside the Homerton.
“I was so proud to see a protest in solidarity with Palestine in front of the hospital. It’s this sort of action that makes it crystal clear to the chief executives of the trust that the public, the people who use this hospital, don’t like the idea of Palantir being connected with the Homerton,” Jordan said.
“We started off talking to people about Palantir and Palestine, but pretty quickly conversations about the company’s involvement with Ice, and racist policing in the US, came up.”
Ice is one of Palantir’s biggest clients in the US.
Hannah Lucal, a researcher with Just Futures Law has written, “Palantir has been used in Ice’s day-to-day operations for data surveillance around deportations and that’s been true for over a decade.”
“This was especially the case after Trump’s attacks on Minneapolis, sending Ice troops en masse into the city,” Jordan explained.
‘We’ve beaten Burnham once, we can do it again’
At the Whittington Hospital, in Islington, north London, a similar campaign against Palantir has started up.
It’s building on the foundations of an earlier campaign against cuts proposed to accident and emergency and maternity services at the hospital.
When rumours of more cuts began making the rounds, the campaign called a public meeting in November of last year.
“We discussed cuts, but people kept asking about Palantir. It wasn’t something we knew much about, so we had to get up to speed pretty quickly,”
Shirley Franklin, the joint chair of the Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition (DWHC), told Socialist Worker.
“Working with the Good Law Project, we lobbied the hospital trust to stop using Palantir’s software.
“We also lobbied Islington Council. And we got local MP Jeremy Corbyn involved in the campaign as well.
“And, while we were out campaigning in the local elections in May 2026, we were able to bring some Palestine activists into the campaign as well,” Shirley explained.
DWHC won a victory in 2010, forcing the Labour health secretary at the time, one Andy Burnham, to put a stop to the proposed cuts.
And that success gives Shirley hope for this fight.
“We’ve beaten Burnham once. We can do it again. And we’ve got a card to play. When he was mayor of Greater Manchester, he didn’t sign any contracts with Palantir.
“So, if that’s what works for Manchester, surely that works for the rest of the country,” she argued.
That campaign also provides encouragement for today.
“If you’re on the front foot, if you’re proactive in these fights, you can shift things,” she said.
Palantir’s contract with the NHS is one of its biggest in Britain—but the company is involved in much more than the health service
‘You only have to look at Ice in the US to see where Palantir leads’
In Coventry, the city council recently renewed a contract with Palantir.
“It started off as a trial in 2025, and it was used to deal with data from casework in children’s and adult social services,” Unison union member Trevor told Socialist Worker.
“That contract was worth £500,000. It’s since been renewed, for £750,000.
“And Palantir’s software is now being used more widely in the council. It’s now used to deal with data for children who need special educational needs and disability (Send) support.”
Trevor, like Jordan, was shocked by the absence of any transparency in the awarding of the contract.
“There were no negotiations with any trade unions before the contract was signed.
“And, immediately after it was signed, there were Palantir staff working inside the city council, in the same building as the mayor and the administration.
“This has caused considerable concerns that Palantir might have access to sensitive data,” Trevor explained.
But, shocking as it was, it spurred campaigners and trade unionists into action.
“MP Zarah Sultana and Grace Lewis, a former councillor locally, started up a campaign against Palantir.
“We’ve protested outside the city council, with support from trade unions—the NEU, UCU and Unison especially—and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and launched a petition.”
And, as elsewhere, the concerns about Palantir in Coventry, are far‑reaching.
“When the deal with them was first done, it was a Labour administration. After the last local elections, it’s under no overall control.
“And Reform UK is the second largest bloc on the council,” Trevor said.
“Reform UK is extremely supportive of Palantir. But you only have to look to the example of Ice in the US, to see where that leads.”
Palantir is a threat not just to the NHS, but public services as a whole in Britain. But there is an opportunity to push them back—by bringing together campaigns against austerity, against racism and in solidarity with Palestine.
On 1 October, there will be a chance to do that and to link up campaigns against Palantir worldwide.
Amnesty International has called for an international day of action against the company. And already there are demonstrations and protests planned across Britain, including in Coventry, and at the Homerton and Whittington hospitals.
