Britain is on course to becoming a '2nd tier' European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak armed force that weakens its effectiveness to allies, an expert has warned.

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

The plain evaluation weighed that successive federal government failures in policy and attracting investment had caused Britain to miss out on 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 composed in The Henry Jackson Society's newest report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

The report assesses that is now on track to fall behind Poland in regards to per capita earnings by 2030, which the central European nation's military will quickly exceed the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and equipment on the current trajectory.

'The issue is that when we are reduced to a second tier middle power, it's going to be practically difficult to get back. Nations don't come back from this,' Dr Ibrahim informed MailOnline today.

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

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 with Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery throughout a live fire variety on Rovajärvi Training Area, throughout Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim invited the federal government's decision to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, however warned much deeper, systemic problems 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 only is the U.K. forecasted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, however also a smaller army and one that is unable to sustain deployment at scale.'

This is of particular issue at a time of heightened geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe's fast 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 a huge oversight on the part of subsequent 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 informed MailOnline.

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

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low efficiency are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now also 'failing to change' to the Trump administration's jolt to the rules-based worldwide order, said Dr Ibrahim.

The former 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 reacting by harming the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he stated, 'seems to be making progressively pricey 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 examination.

Negotiations in between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but an arrangement 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 move demonstrates fretting tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government describes as being characterised by terrific power competitors'.

Require the U.K. to provide reparations for its historical function 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 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 during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

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

'We understand soldiers and rockets however fail to fully envisage the risk that having no option to China's supply chains may have on our ability to react to military aggressiveness.'

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

'Without immediate policy changes to reignite development, Britain will end up being a lessened power, reliant on stronger allies and susceptible to foreign browbeating,' the Diplomacy writer said.

'As international financial competition intensifies, the U.K. must choose whether to accept a vibrant development agenda or resign itself to irreparable decrease.'

Britain's commitment to the idea of Net Zero might be admirable, but the pursuit will hinder growth and obscure strategic goals, he alerted.

'I am not saying that the environment is trivial. But we merely can not afford to do this.

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

Nuclear power, including making use of little modular reactors, might be an advantage for the British economy and energy independence.

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

Britain did introduce a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had insisted was key to finding the cash for pricey plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain's development agency, has actually been declared for its grants for little energy-producing business in your home, business owners have alerted a wider culture of 'danger aversion' in the U.K. suppresses 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 photo of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

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

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

'The risk to this order ... has actually established partly because of the lack of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to deliberate foreign attempts to overturn the acknowledgment of the real prowling hazard they posture.'

The Trump administration's cautioning to NATO allies in Europe that they will need to do their own bidding has gone some way towards waking Britain as much as the urgency 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 take up tremendous amounts of funds and they'll just keep growing substantially,' he told MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS budget and it will actually not make much of a damage. So all of this will require fundamental reform and will take a great deal of nerve from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them unpopular.'

The report lays out suggestions in extreme tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a renewed focus on securing Britain's role as a leader in state-of-the-art markets, energy security, and international trade.

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

File photo. Britain's financial stagnation might see it quickly become a '2nd tier' partner

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

Britain is not alone in falling back. The Trump administration's insistence that Europe spend for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent's dire circumstance after decades of slow development and lowered costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of last year that Euro area economic efficiency has actually been 'suppressed' since around 2018, showing 'multifaceted challenges of energy dependence, producing vulnerabilities, and moving international trade characteristics'.

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

This remains delicate, however, with citizens significantly agitated by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of budget-friendly accommodation and trapped 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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