Britain is on course to becoming a 'second tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decrease and a weak military that weakens its effectiveness to allies, a specialist has alerted.

Research professor 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 regulation and drawing in financial investment had triggered Britain to lose 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 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 examines that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in regards to per capita income by 2030, and that the central European country's military will quickly go beyond the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and devices on the current trajectory.

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

'This is going to be sped up decline unless we nip this in the bud and have strong leaders who have the ability 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 uses a radio to speak with Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, throughout Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

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

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

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'Not just is the U.K. forecasted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, but also a smaller sized army and one that is unable to sustain release 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 task.

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

'This is a huge oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not just Starmer's issue, of failing to invest in our military and basically outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,' he informed MailOnline.

'With the U.S. getting fatigue of supplying 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 in fact lead European defence. But none of the European countries are.'

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low productivity are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now also 'failing to change' to the Trump administration's shock to the rules-based worldwide 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 organizations as soon as 'secured' by the U.S., Britain is reacting by hurting the last vestiges of its military may and economic power.

The U.K., he said, 'seems to be making significantly 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 actually been the source of much examination.

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

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think thank warned at the time that 'the relocation demonstrates worrying strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government explains as being characterised by fantastic power competition'.

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

A Challenger 2 primary 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 examined that the U.K. seems to be acting versus its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of danger.

'We comprehend soldiers and missiles however fail to completely conceive of the danger that having no alternative to China's supply chains might have on our ability to respond to military hostility.'

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

'Without instant policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will end up being a decreased power, reliant on stronger allies and susceptible to foreign coercion,' the Foreign Policy columnist stated.

'As worldwide economic competitors intensifies, the U.K. should choose whether to welcome a vibrant development agenda or resign itself to irreversible decrease.'

Britain's dedication to the concept of Net Zero might be admirable, but the pursuit will prevent growth and obscure strategic goals, he cautioned.

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

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

Nuclear power, consisting of making use of little modular reactors, might 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 considerable quantity of time.'

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

While Innovate UK, Britain's development agency, has actually been declared for its grants for small energy-producing companies in your home, business owners have actually warned a larger culture of 'danger 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 picture of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has actually consistently stopped working to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian threat', allowing the pattern of handled decline.

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

'The hazard to this order ... has actually established partly due to the fact that of the absence of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to overturn the acknowledgment of the true prowling threat they position.'

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

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is insufficient. He urged a top-down reform of 'basically our whole 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 take up immense amounts of funds and they'll simply keep growing substantially,' he told MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS budget plan and it will really not make much of a dent. So all of this will require basic reform and will take a lot of guts from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them out of favor.'

The report lays out suggestions in radical tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a renewed concentrate on protecting Britain's role as a leader in high-tech industries, energy security, and global 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 image. Britain's financial stagnation could see it quickly end up being a '2nd tier' partner

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

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

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial efficiency has actually been 'suppressed' because around 2018, illustrating 'multifaceted of energy dependency, producing vulnerabilities, and moving worldwide trade dynamics'.

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

This remains delicate, nevertheless, with homeowners significantly agitated by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of affordable lodging and trapped in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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