Britain’s Digital Surrender to US Tech: A Nation Sold Down the River

The sale of the century is happening, not in our auction houses, but in the halls of Whitehall. It is a systematic surrender of Britain’s technological sovereignty and economic future. While our politicians speak of global partnerships and foreign investment, the reality on the ground is that the United Kingdom is being sold down the river, and it is our own leaders handing over the oars. Before it is too late, they must be compelled to put Britain first, not what is crassly creating the massively funded Ziontech Global operating system power grab.

The evidence is not even hidden in complex reports; it is in plain sight. Look at the very central nervous system of our state. Untendered The UK civil service is now embedding OpenAI’s technology into its core functions. Our National Health Service, the jewel in our public crown, and even our Ministry of Defence, are now entwined with the Wartech merchant of death Palantir - a US data-mining giant that prides itself on having board meetings in Israel. These are not just service contracts; they are foundational dependencies. Worryingly, many of these deals, like the NHS’s controversial £370m and rising Federated Data Platform, are untendered excluding UK based competition, leaving the lingering suspicion of a game rigged in favour of a chosen few. Is it any wonder, when we see a revolving door of former Big Tech faces from firms like Microsoft heading up national strategies and therefore pulling strings behind the scenes?

This pattern of deference to the crooked VC Church of Silicon Valley is sold to us as progress. We are told to celebrate the £40 billion investment from Amazon as a monumental vote of confidence in our economy. But for whom is this a victory? Ask the owner of a local bookshop, a hardware store, or any of the thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that are barely holding on. For them, Amazon is not an investor; it is the architect of a system that has hollowed out our high streets and suffocated local enterprise more effectively than any recession. Did we ever get out of the destruction of 2008 and 2020 great giveaways? Because the rebuild looks unsound, short-term and certainly not fit for our purpose

The current policy is not fostering a UK free market and therefore growing our GDP; it is suffocating it. A true free market requires a level playing field, but there is nothing level about a landscape where British businesses pay their full share of taxes while competing against foreign-owned corporations that legally funnel billions in revenue out of the country, paying virtually nothing to the Exchequer. Every business owner I speak to says the same thing: the cash has been taken from the market. This isn't just a feeling; it is an economic reality. That money, extracted from our local economies, is no longer paying British wages, funding our public services, or being reinvested here at home. It is starving our GDP from the ground up.

The most terrifying part of this surrender is the strategic vulnerability it creates. Having outsourced our critical digital infrastructure and millions of jobs, what happens when a future US President—perhaps one championing a fierce "America First" agenda—decides to use that dependency as a political lever? When our healthcare, defence, and government administration rely on the goodwill of a foreign power, Britain is no longer a sovereign partner but a digital vassal state, subject to the whims and pressures of another nation's politics.

The time for polite debate and celebrating press-release investments is over. This is a lament for the future we are carelessly giving away. Our politicians must be shaken from their stupor. To "put Britain first" is not just a slogan; it must become a radical and urgent change in our national strategy. It means using government procurement to nurture our own domestic technology sector. It means enforcing a tax system where everyone who profits from Britain, contributes to Britain. It means investing in sovereign capabilities, even when the off-the-shelf foreign option seems easier.

The choice is stark: we can continue down this path to becoming a mere technology consumer, a branch office for Silicon Valley, or we can reclaim our rightful sovereign share and retain our economic independence. Before it is too late, our leaders must choose Britain not pamper to a few oligarchs.

TTFN and thanks for reading. Talking of being proactive have you tried this. With salespeople working in warehouses and marketing about to die thanks to AI search, this is a great leveller for UK SMEs.