Britain is on course to becoming a '2nd tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decrease and a weak armed force that undermines its effectiveness to allies, a professional has actually cautioned.

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

The stark evaluation weighed that successive government failures in guideline and bring in financial investment had caused Britain to lose out on the 'industries of the future' courted by developed economies.

'Britain no longer has the to logistically sustain a war with a near-peer like Russia for more than two 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 earnings by 2030, which the central European nation's armed force will soon exceed the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and devices on the existing trajectory.

'The concern is that once we are reduced to a 2nd tier middle power, it's going to be virtually difficult to return. Nations do not 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 bold leaders who are able to make the difficult decisions 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 utilizes a radio to talk to Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

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

With a weakening industrial base, Britain's effectiveness to its allies is now 'falling behind 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 also a smaller army and one that is unable to sustain release at scale.'

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

'There are 230 brigades in Ukraine right now, 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 just Starmer's issue, of failing to buy our military and essentially contracting out security to the United States and NATO,' he informed MailOnline.

'With the U.S. getting fatigue of offering the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now needs 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 costs and patterns of low productivity are absolutely nothing new. But Britain is now also 'failing to adjust' to the Trump administration's jolt 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 as soon as 'protected' by the U.S., Britain is responding by damaging the last vestiges of its military may and financial power.

The U.K., he said, '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 in between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but an agreement was revealed by the Labour government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security believe thank warned at the time that 'the relocation demonstrates stressing strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government refers to as being characterised by excellent power competitors'.

Calls for the U.K. to offer reparations for its historic function in the servant trade were rekindled also in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the program.

A Challenger 2 main fight tank of the British forces during 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 a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

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

'We comprehend soldiers and missiles however stop working to totally envisage the risk that having no option to China's supply chains might have on our capability to react to military hostility.'

He suggested a new security model to 'improve the U.K.'s tactical dynamism' based on a rethink of migratory policy and hazard evaluation, access to unusual earth minerals in a market dominated 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 immediate policy modifications to reignite growth, Britain will end up being a lessened power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,' the Foreign Policy writer said.

'As international economic competition heightens, the U.K. needs to decide whether to welcome a vibrant growth program or resign itself to irreparable decrease.'

Britain's commitment to the idea of Net Zero might be admirable, but the pursuit will prevent development and unknown strategic objectives, he cautioned.

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

'We are a nation that has actually stopped working to purchase our financial, in our energy infrastructure. And we have considerable resources at our disposal.'

Nuclear power, including using small modular reactors, might be a benefit for the British economy and energy independence.

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

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

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation firm, has been declared for its grants for little energy-producing business in the house, business owners have alerted a larger culture of 'threat aversion' in the U.K. suppresses 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 photo of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has regularly stopped working to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian risk', enabling the trend of managed decline.

But the renewal of autocracies on the world stage dangers even more weakening the rules-based worldwide order from which Britain 'advantages immensely' as a globalised economy.

'The hazard to this order ... has developed partly due to the fact that of the lack of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to deliberate foreign efforts to overturn the acknowledgment of the real prowling hazard they pose.'

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

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is not enough. He prompted a top-down reform of 'essentially our whole state' to bring the ossified state back to life and sustain it.

'Reforming the welfare state, reforming the NHS, reforming pensions - these are basically bodies that take up enormous amounts of funds and they'll simply keep growing substantially,' he informed MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS budget plan and it will really not make much of a damage. So all of this will require basic reform and will take a lot of courage from whomever is in power because it will make them unpopular.'

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

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

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

Boarded-up stores in Blackpool as more than 13,000 stores closed their doors for excellent 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 scenario after years of slow development and reduced costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of last year that Euro area financial efficiency has actually been 'controlled' because around 2018, showing 'multifaceted obstacles of energy reliance, making vulnerabilities, and shifting worldwide trade dynamics'.

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

This remains vulnerable, however, with residents increasingly upset by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of inexpensive lodging and caught in low paying seasonal tasks.

The Henry Jackson Society is a foreign policy and nationwide security believe thank based in the UK.

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