Why Andy Burnham fears the future

This article was first published in CapX.

Andy Burnham is not a forward-looking man. His musical interests stop at around 1998, his approach to industry is straight out of the 1970s and his favourite football team hasn’t won a trophy for over thirty years.

It’s little surprise then that he takes a dim view of the ongoing tech revolution. It was reported last week that if he becomes Prime Minister, he will pivot Britain’s artificial intelligence strategy in a concerning direction. Working alongside Josh Simons – the erstwhile MP for Makerfield – Burnham will shift away from what he claims is an overly US-centric approach.

According to one member of team Burnham, ‘unfettered tech boosterism is a vote-loser’, and Keir Starmer’s approach of forming relationships with US-based tech firms has been a ‘geopolitical failure that hasn’t delivered on its intended aims [and has] also put the Labour government at odds with its voters and the vast majority of the British public’.

The US-first approach adopted by Starmer was largely steered by Peter Mandelson. As Ambassador, Mandelson was keen to secure large-scale investment in Britain from US tech companies. The Trump administration last year suspended a deal brokered by Mandelson as Washington grew increasingly frustrated with the slow progress of wider trade talks in London. As part of the deal, Microsoft and Google had pledged to invest $20 billion and $5 billion respectively to scale up their data centre networks.

The former Ambassador also attempted to arrange meetings between Starmer and delegates from the US defence company Palantir and described Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, as his ‘Chief AI Buddy’.

The Burnham regime looks set to focus instead on ‘tech sovereignty’ over partnerships with international firms. ‘We do need data centres, but we need to think about who runs and owns those data centres’, said a member of team Burnham. AI growth zones will also be reviewed. Regarding the planned rollout of driverless cars in London, one team member asked incredulously, ‘what’s the point and who’s it for?’

CapX readers will know that this resistance to tech does not bode well for Britain’s prospects. AI has the potential to transform the way we live for the better, and has already enhanced our public services, where politicians haven’t got in the way. 

Palantir’s work in the NHS is a case in point. 

In 2023, the defence company signed a £330 million, seven-year deal with the NHS to implement its ‘federated data platform’. The platform is designed to help NHS trusts manage data in their hospitals by linking up information held by various trusts, giving the health service a clearer picture of the population’s health. The programme is also intended to help individual hospitals manage their data more effectively and drive improvements in waiting times and treatment.

It has delivered on several fronts. Trusts which have used the system have increased theatre utilisation by around 12% – if replicated nationally this could mean around 1.5m extra operations a year by the end of the contract. So far, 300,000 patients have benefited from Palantir’s streamlined processes.

The material impact this technology is already having on people’s lives is profound, yet Burnham is rumoured to be considering axing the contract in government. It would be easy to pin this solely on the former Manchester Mayor’s technophobia, but there is a deeper aversion to Palantir within the Labour Party, for reasons that have nothing to do with Palantir’s effectiveness.

In addition to the NHS, the company signed a formal strategic partnership with the Israel Defence Forces in 2024 and it also acts as the technological backbone to Donald Trump’s Immigration Control and Enforcement unit.

While he has not confirmed this, it is widely believed that this is the reason for Sadiq Khan blocking a £50m contract between Palantir and the Metropolitan Police earlier this year, which would have automated aspects of the force’s investigations. Louis Mosley – CEO of Palantir UK – responded thusly:

I think the mayor is putting politics over public safety. He talks about values, but I think what Londoners value is not being mugged, not being raped by a serving police officer.

He is of course right. The NHS has some of the worst healthcare outcomes in Europe, and low-level crime has become the background music to London life: the idea that politicians would put ideology ahead of national wellbeing is repellent. 

One of the great benefits of Brexit has been our ability to create a regulatory regime which is favourable to the technologies of the future, unlike the European Union. But we will not continue this momentum and reap the benefits of automation if politicians – through a mixture of luddism and virtue signalling – stand in the way.