Tom Palmer is a British academic of labour movement history. He is currently researching the Communist Party of Australia, 1970-1991, as a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, having received an international student scholarship.

He holds degrees in modern history from both the University of Oxford (MSt) and the University of Leeds (BA Hons). He has researched the British labour movement's engagement with communist Eastern Europe. He has published work on the British Left's engagement with the Polish trade union Solidarność in the 1980s.