Britain is on course to becoming a 'second tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to financial decline and a weak military that weakens its usefulness to allies, an expert has alerted.

Research teacher Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning new report that the U.K. has actually 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 stark evaluation weighed that successive federal government failures in policy and attracting financial investment had caused Britain to miss out on the 'industries of the future' courted by established 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 composed in The Henry Jackson Society's most current report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

The report assesses that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in regards to per capita income by 2030, which the main European country's military will soon go beyond the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and devices on the existing trajectory.

'The issue is that as soon as we are devalued to a 2nd tier middle power, it's going to be almost difficult to return. Nations don't return from this,' Dr Ibrahim told MailOnline today.

'This is going to be accelerated decline unless we nip this in the bud and have strong leaders who are able to make the hard decisions today.'

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

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

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

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the government's choice to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but cautioned much deeper, systemic issues threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as an internationally prominent power.

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

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'Not just is the U.K. predicted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, however also a smaller sized army and one that is unable to sustain implementation at scale.'

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

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

'This is an enormous oversight on the part of subsequent federal governments, not just Starmer's issue, of stopping working to invest in our military and basically contracting out security to the United States and NATO,' he told MailOnline.

'With the U.S. getting fatigue of providing the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now has to stand on its own and the U.K. would have been in a premium position to in fact lead European defence. But none of the European nations are.'

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

The previous advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review kept in mind in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the institutions when 'protected' by the U.S., Britain is reacting by harming the last vestiges of its military might and financial power.

The U.K., he said, 'appears to be making significantly expensive gestures' like the ₤ 9bn handover of the strategic 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 analysis.

between the U.K. and Mauritius were started by the Tories in 2022, however a contract was announced by the Labour federal government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security believe thank alerted at the time that 'the move shows worrying strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government refers to 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 in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a conference of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the agenda.

A Challenger 2 primary fight 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 during an interview in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

Dr Ibhramin assessed 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 rockets but fail to completely envisage the danger that having no alternative to China's supply chains may have on our capability to react to military aggressiveness.'

He suggested a brand-new security design to 'enhance the U.K.'s tactical dynamism' based upon a rethink of migratory policy and risk assessment, access to unusual earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and self-reliance via investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

'Without instant policy modifications to reignite growth, Britain will become a diminished power, reliant on more powerful allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,' the Diplomacy columnist said.

'As international financial competition magnifies, the U.K. should decide whether to accept a strong growth agenda or resign itself to permanent decline.'

Britain's dedication to the idea of Net Zero may be admirable, however the pursuit will prevent development and unknown tactical goals, he warned.

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

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

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

'But we have actually stopped working to commercialise them and clearly that's going to take a substantial amount of time.'

Britain did present a brand-new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had actually insisted was crucial to finding the money for costly plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain's development agency, has actually been heralded for its grants for small energy-producing business in the house, entrepreneurs have actually cautioned a broader culture of 'risk aversion' in the U.K. stifles financial investment.

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

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

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

But the revival of autocracies on the world phase threats further undermining the rules-based international order from which Britain 'advantages enormously' as a globalised economy.

'The danger to this order ... has actually established partly due to the fact that of the lack of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to overturn the acknowledgment of the true prowling danger they present.'

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

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

'Reforming the welfare state, reforming the NHS, reforming pensions - these are essentially bodies that use up enormous amounts of funds and they'll just keep growing significantly,' he told MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS spending plan and it will truly not make much of a dent. So all of this will need fundamental reform and will take a lot of nerve from whomever is in power because it will make them out of favor.'

The report describes suggestions in extreme tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a restored focus on protecting Britain's function as a leader in state-of-the-art industries, energy security, and global trade.

Vladimir Putin talks to the guv of Arkhangelsk area Alexander Tsybulsky throughout their conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File photo. Britain's economic stagnation might see it quickly become a 'second tier' partner

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

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

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of in 2015 that Euro area financial performance has been 'controlled' because around 2018, showing 'complex difficulties of energy dependence, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and shifting global trade dynamics'.

There remain profound disparities between European economies; German deindustrialisation has actually struck businesses hard and forced redundancies, while Spain has grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This stays vulnerable, however, with citizens progressively agitated by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of affordable accommodation and caught in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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