Britain is on course to ending up being a '2nd tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decrease and a weak military that weakens its usefulness to allies, a specialist has warned.

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

The stark assessment weighed that succeeding federal government failures in policy and bring in financial investment had actually caused Britain to miss 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 two months,' he wrote in The Henry Jackson Society's latest report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

The report examines that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in regards to per capita income by 2030, and that the main European nation's armed force will quickly exceed the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and devices 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 virtually impossible 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 bold leaders who are able 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 uses a radio to speak to Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire variety on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

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

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

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

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

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

'This is a massive oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not simply Starmer's issue, of stopping working to buy our military and basically outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,' he told MailOnline.

'With the U.S. getting tiredness of supplying the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now has to base 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 absolutely nothing new. But Britain is now likewise 'stopping working to change' to the Trump administration's shock to the rules-based worldwide order, stated Dr Ibrahim.

The previous advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the organizations when 'secured' by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last vestiges of its military might and financial power.

The U.K., he stated, 'seems to be making progressively pricey 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 between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but 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 relocation demonstrates stressing strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government explains as being characterised by excellent power competition'.

Require the U.K. to offer reparations for its historical role in the servant trade were rekindled also in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the program.

An Opposition 2 primary fight tank of the British forces throughout 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 evaluated that the U.K. seems to be acting versus its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of threat.

'We comprehend soldiers and missiles but stop working to completely develop of the danger that having no alternative to China's supply chains may have on our capability to react to military aggressiveness.'

He recommended a brand-new security model to 'boost the U.K.'s strategic dynamism' based on a rethink of migratory policy and risk assessment, access to uncommon earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and self-reliance by means of investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on atomic energy.

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

'As global economic competitors heightens, the U.K. must decide whether to embrace a vibrant growth program or resign itself to irreversible decline.'

Britain's dedication to the idea of Net Zero may be laudable, however the pursuit will and obscure tactical goals, he cautioned.

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

'We are a country that has actually stopped working to buy our financial, in our energy infrastructure. And we have substantial resources at our disposal.'

Nuclear power, consisting of the use of small modular reactors, could be a benefit for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

'But we've failed to commercialise them and obviously that's going to take a substantial amount of time.'

Britain did present a new financing model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour politicians had actually insisted was key to finding the cash for costly plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation agency, has actually been declared for its grants for small energy-producing companies in your home, business owners have actually alerted a broader culture of 'danger aversion' in the U.K. stifles financial investment.

In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million individuals 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 actually consistently failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian threat', permitting the trend of managed decline.

But the renewal of autocracies on the world stage dangers further weakening the rules-based international order from which Britain 'advantages enormously' as a globalised economy.

'The risk to this order ... has established partially due to the fact that of the lack of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to deliberate foreign attempts to overturn the recognition of the true lurking hazard they position.'

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

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is not enough. He urged 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 substantially,' he informed MailOnline.

'You might double the NHS budget plan and it will actually not make much of a damage. So all of this will require essential reform and will take a lot of nerve from whomever is in power due to the fact that 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 markets, energy security, and worldwide trade.

Vladimir Putin speaks with the guv of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky throughout their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File picture. Britain's financial stagnancy might see it soon end up being a 'second tier' partner

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

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

The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of in 2015 that Euro area financial efficiency has actually been 'controlled' since around 2018, highlighting 'complex challenges of energy reliance, making vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade dynamics'.

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

This stays vulnerable, however, with homeowners progressively agitated by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of economical lodging and trapped in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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