Britain is on course to ending up being a 'second tier' European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak military that weakens its usefulness to allies, a professional has cautioned.

Research professor Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning new report that the U.K. has been paralysed by low financial investment, high tax and misdirected policies that might see it lose its standing as a top-tier middle power at present development rates.

The plain evaluation weighed that succeeding federal government failures in policy and bring in financial investment had actually caused Britain to lose out on the 'industries of the future' courted by developed economies.

'Britain no longer has the commercial base to logistically sustain a war with a near-peer like Russia for more than 2 months,' he wrote in The Henry Jackson Society's newest report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

The report evaluates that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in terms of per capita earnings by 2030, and that the central European country's armed force will quickly surpass the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the current trajectory.

'The concern is that as soon as we are devalued to a second tier middle power, it's going to be practically difficult to return. Nations don't come back from this,' Dr Ibrahim told MailOnline today.

'This is going to be accelerated decrease unless we nip this in the bud and have vibrant leaders who have the ability to make the challenging choices right now.'

People pass boarded up stores on March 20, 2024 in Hastings, England

A British soldier refills his rifle on February 17, 2025 in Smardan, Romania

Staff Sergeant Rai utilizes a radio to speak to Archer teams from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, throughout Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the federal government's decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but warned much deeper, systemic problems threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a globally prominent power.

With a weakening commercial base, Britain's effectiveness to its allies is now 'falling back even second-tier European powers', he alerted.

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'Not only is the U.K. forecasted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, but also a smaller army and one that is unable to sustain release at scale.'

This is of particular issue at a time of increased geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be among the leading forces in Europe's fast rearmament project.

'There are 230 brigades in Ukraine right now, Russian and Ukrainian. Not a single European nation to install a single heavy armoured brigade.'

'This is a huge oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not simply Starmer's problem, of failing to buy our military and essentially contracting out security to the United States and NATO,' he informed MailOnline.

'With the U.S. getting tiredness of providing the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now has to base on its own and the U.K. would have remained in a premium position to actually lead European defence. But none of the European countries are.'

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low performance are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now likewise 'failing to adjust' to the Trump administration's shock to the rules-based global order, stated Dr Ibrahim.

The former advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the institutions as soon as 'protected' by the U.S., Britain is reacting by damaging the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he stated, 'seems to be making progressively expensive gestures' like the ₤ 9bn handover of the tactical Chagos Islands and opening talks on reparations for Caribbean Slavery.

The surrender of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean has been the source of much examination.

Negotiations in between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, however an arrangement was announced by the Labour government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think thank alerted at the time that 'the move demonstrates worrying strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government explains as being characterised by great power competitors'.

Require the U.K. to offer reparations for its historic function in the slave trade were revived likewise in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the program.

An Opposition 2 primary battle tank of the British forces during the NATO's Spring Storm exercise in Kilingi-Nomme, Estonia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speak throughout an interview in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

Dr Ibhramin evaluated that the U.K. appears to be acting against its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of risk.

'We understand soldiers and missiles however fail to totally develop of the danger that having no alternative to China's supply chains might have on our ability to react to military aggressiveness.'

He suggested a brand-new security design to 'improve the U.K.'s strategic dynamism' based on a rethink of migratory policy and hazard assessment, access to rare earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence by means of financial investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on atomic energy.

'Without instant policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will end up being a decreased power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,' the Foreign Policy columnist stated.

'As global economic competition magnifies, the U.K. must decide whether to accept a vibrant growth agenda or resign itself to irreparable decline.'

Britain's commitment to the concept of Net Zero might be laudable, but the pursuit will hinder development and unknown strategic goals, he alerted.

'I am not stating that the environment is trivial. But we merely can not pay for to do this.

'We are a nation that has failed to invest in our economic, in our energy facilities. And we have substantial resources at our disposal.'

Nuclear power, including using little modular reactors, might be an advantage for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

'But we've stopped working to commercialise them and undoubtedly that's going to take a substantial amount of time.'

Britain did present a brand-new financing model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour political leaders had actually insisted was key to finding the cash for pricey plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation company, has been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing business in the house, business owners have actually warned a wider culture of 'threat hostility' in the U.K. stifles investment.

In 2022, earnings for the poorest 14 million people fell by 7.5%, per the ONS. Pictured: Waterlooville High Street, Waterlooville, Hants

Undated file image of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has consistently failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian hazard', enabling the pattern of handled decline.

But the revival of autocracies on the world phase dangers even more weakening the rules-based global order from which Britain 'benefits tremendously' as a globalised economy.

'The hazard to this order ... has established partially due to the fact that of the lack of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to deliberate foreign efforts to overturn the acknowledgment of the real lurking risk they present.'

The Trump administration's alerting to NATO allies in Europe that they will have to do their own bidding has gone some method towards waking Britain approximately the seriousness of investing in defence.

But Dr Ibrahim cautioned that this is insufficient. He advised a top-down reform of 'basically our entire state' to bring the ossified state back to life and sustain it.

'Reforming the well-being state, reforming the NHS, reforming pensions - these are basically bodies that take up enormous quantities of funds and they'll just keep growing substantially,' he told MailOnline.

'You might double the NHS budget and it will actually not make much of a dent. So all of this will need basic reform and will take a lot of courage from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them undesirable.'

The report describes suggestions in radical tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored focus on protecting Britain's role as a leader in modern industries, energy security, and international trade.

Vladimir Putin talks to the governor of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File photo. Britain's economic stagnation could see it quickly end up being a 'second tier' partner

Boarded-up shops in Blackpool as more than 13,000 shops closed their doors for great in 2024

Britain is not alone in falling back. The Trump administration's insistence that Europe spend for its own defence has actually cast fresh light on the Old Continent's alarming situation after decades of sluggish growth and reduced spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial efficiency has actually been 'suppressed' given that around 2018, showing 'multifaceted challenges of energy reliance, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade dynamics'.

There remain extensive discrepancies between European economies; German deindustrialisation has actually hit services difficult and forced redundancies, while Spain has grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This remains vulnerable, however, with homeowners progressively upset by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of cost effective accommodation and caught in low paying seasonal tasks.

The Henry Jackson Society is a diplomacy and national security think thank based in the UK.

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