Benali Hamdache, Green Party London Assembly member welcomes the Mayor’s announcement to block a highly contentious £50 million contract between spy-tech firm Palantir and the Met police but warns that serious loopholes in procurement rules still risk allowing similar deals to happen again in future. [1]
The Green Party London Assembly Member is now calling on the Mayor to tighten procurement oversight, including reviewing the current £500,000 threshold for mayoral involvement in policing contracts. During questioning, the Mayor indicated he was receptive to some of the concerns raised and said he would look further into the issue of threshold reviews and procurement scrutiny. [2]
Green Party London Assembly Member Benali Hamdache said:
“The public backlash has been impossible to ignore and the Mayor now appears to be distancing himself from Labour’s cosy relationship with Palantir and finally listening to the anger and concern felt across London.
“Palantir has repeatedly shown contempt for international law through the development of surveillance and AI technology used as part of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Trump’s inhumane ICE crackdown operations and the recent disturbing manifesto published by the company.
“Londoners do not want our public services associated with corporations that profit from war and human suffering.
“It’s good that this £50 million contract was blocked, but the Met still has contracts with Palantir worth nearly £500,000 that haven’t been challenged.
“Blocking this larger contract is an important step, but Londoners deserve answers about how it was ever seriously considered in the first place and what guarantees are now in place to ensure nothing like this happens again with any contract regardless of size.”