Britain is on course to becoming a 'second tier' European country like Spain or Italy due to financial decrease and a weak armed force that undermines its usefulness to allies, an expert has warned.

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

The plain evaluation weighed that succeeding federal government failures in guideline and drawing in investment had actually triggered Britain to miss out on the 'markets of the future' courted by developed economies.

'Britain no longer has the industrial 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 most current 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 terms of per capita income by 2030, which the central European country's military will quickly surpass the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and equipment on the present trajectory.

'The concern is that once we are downgraded to a second tier middle power, it's going to be virtually impossible to get back. 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 bold leaders who have the ability to make the difficult choices today.'

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

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

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

Dr Ibrahim invited the government's choice to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but alerted much deeper, systemic concerns threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a globally prominent power.

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

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

This is of specific issue at a time of increased geopolitical stress, 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 country to install a single heavy armoured brigade.'

'This is a massive oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not simply Starmer's issue, of failing to invest in our military and basically outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,' he told 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 really 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 'failing to change' to the Trump administration's shock to the rules-based global order, stated Dr Ibrahim.

The previous consultant to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the institutions when 'protected' by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last of its military may and financial power.

The U.K., he stated, 'appears to be making increasingly 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 actually been the source of much examination.

Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were started by the Tories in 2022, but an agreement was revealed by the Labour federal government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security believe thank warned at the time that 'the relocation shows fretting tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government refers to as being characterised by terrific power competition'.

Require the U.K. to supply reparations for its historic function in the servant trade were revived likewise in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a conference of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the agenda.

An Opposition 2 main fight tank of the British forces throughout the NATO's Spring Storm workout 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. seems to be acting versus its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of risk.

'We understand soldiers and missiles but fail to fully envisage the risk that having no alternative to China's supply chains might have on our capability to react to military aggressiveness.'

He suggested a new security design to 'improve the U.K.'s strategic 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 through financial investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

'Without instant policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will end up being a reduced power, reliant on stronger allies and susceptible to foreign coercion,' the Diplomacy columnist said.

'As global economic competitors magnifies, the U.K. should choose whether to accept a vibrant growth agenda or resign itself to irreparable decrease.'

Britain's dedication to the idea of Net Zero may be laudable, but the pursuit will hinder development and obscure strategic objectives, he alerted.

'I am not saying that the environment is not important. But we just can not manage to do this.

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

Nuclear power, consisting of using little modular reactors, could be a benefit for the British economy and energy independence.

'But we've stopped working to commercialise them and clearly that's going to take a significant quantity of time.'

Britain did present a brand-new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour political leaders had insisted was crucial to discovering the cash for expensive plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation firm, has been heralded for its grants for small energy-producing companies in the house, entrepreneurs have actually alerted a broader culture of 'risk aversion' in the U.K. stifles investment.

In 2022, earnings for the poorest 14 million individuals 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 actually consistently failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian hazard', permitting the trend of handled decrease.

But the revival of autocracies on the world stage risks even more undermining the rules-based global order from which Britain 'advantages tremendously' as a globalised economy.

'The risk to this order ... has established partially since of the absence of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to ponder foreign efforts to overturn the acknowledgment of the real hiding hazard they pose.'

The Trump administration's warning to NATO allies in Europe that they will have to do their own bidding has gone some method towards waking Britain as much as the urgency of purchasing defence.

But Dr Ibrahim alerted that this is inadequate. He urged 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 essentially bodies that take up enormous quantities of funds and they'll simply keep growing substantially,' he told MailOnline.

'You might double the NHS budget and it will really not make much of a damage. So all of this will need fundamental reform and will take a great deal of nerve from whomever is in power because it will make them unpopular.'

The report outlines suggestions in extreme tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a restored concentrate on protecting Britain's role as a leader in modern markets, energy security, and global trade.

Vladimir Putin consults with 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 soon end up being 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 actually cast fresh light on the Old Continent's alarming situation after years of slow growth and lowered spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial efficiency has been 'suppressed' since around 2018, highlighting 'complex obstacles of energy dependency, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting worldwide trade dynamics'.

There remain extensive disparities in 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 delicate, however, with residents increasingly upset by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of inexpensive accommodation and caught 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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