Britain is on course to becoming a '2nd tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak armed force that weakens its usefulness to allies, a professional has actually alerted.

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 misdirected policies that might see it lose its standing as a top-tier middle power at current growth rates.

The stark assessment weighed that succeeding government failures in guideline and attracting financial investment had caused Britain to lose out on the 'markets of the future' courted by established economies.

'Britain no longer has the industrial 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 assesses that Britain is now on track to fall behind Poland in terms of per capita income by 2030, which the main European nation's armed force will soon surpass the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and devices on the existing trajectory.

'The problem is that once we are reduced to a 2nd tier middle power, it's going to be almost difficult to return. Nations do not come back from this,' Dr Ibrahim told MailOnline today.

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

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

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

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

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

This is of specific concern at a time of heightened geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe's quick 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 huge oversight on the part of subsequent federal governments, not just Starmer's issue, of stopping working to buy our military and essentially outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,' he told MailOnline.

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

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low efficiency are absolutely nothing new. But Britain is now likewise 'failing to adjust' to the Trump administration's jolt to the rules-based global order, said 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 may and economic power.

The U.K., he said, 'appears to be making significantly 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 scrutiny.

Negotiations in between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but a contract was revealed by the Labour federal government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think thank alerted at the time that 'the relocation shows fretting strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government describes as being characterised by excellent power competition'.

Require the U.K. to provide reparations for its historical function in the servant trade were revived also in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the agenda.

A Challenger 2 main 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 a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

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

'We comprehend soldiers and rockets but fail to totally envisage the threat that having no option to China's supply chains may have on our capability to react to military aggression.'

He recommended a new security model to 'enhance the U.K.'s strategic dynamism' based upon a rethink of migratory policy and threat assessment, access to uncommon earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence through investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

'Without instant policy modifications to reignite growth, Britain will become a decreased power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,' the Foreign Policy writer said.

'As global economic competitors magnifies, the U.K. must decide whether to embrace a bold development program or resign itself to irreparable decrease.'

Britain's commitment to the idea of Net Zero may be admirable, but the pursuit will inhibit development and unknown strategic goals, he alerted.

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

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

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

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

Britain did introduce a brand-new funding design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour politicians had actually firmly insisted was essential to finding the cash for costly plant-building tasks.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation agency, has actually been declared for its grants for small energy-producing business at home, business owners have actually cautioned a wider culture of 'risk hostility' in the U.K. suppresses 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 photo of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has actually regularly stopped working to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian threat', allowing the pattern of managed decrease.

But the revival of autocracies on the world stage threats further undermining the rules-based worldwide order from which Britain 'benefits immensely' as a globalised economy.

'The risk to this order ... has established partly due to the fact that of the lack of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to overturn the recognition of the real hiding 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 method towards waking Britain approximately the seriousness of purchasing defence.

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is insufficient. He advised a top-down reform of 'essentially 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 use up tremendous quantities of funds and they'll simply keep growing substantially,' he informed MailOnline.

'You might double the NHS budget and it will actually not make much of a damage. So all of this will require essential reform and will take a lot of guts from whomever is in power because it will make them out of favor.'

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

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

File picture. Britain's financial stagnancy might see it quickly become a 'second tier' partner

Boarded-up stores 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 cast fresh light on the Old Continent's dire circumstance after decades of slow growth and minimized spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial efficiency has actually been 'subdued' since around 2018, highlighting 'diverse challenges of energy dependency, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting worldwide trade characteristics'.

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

This remains vulnerable, however, with citizens progressively upset by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of economical lodging and caught in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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