Britain is on course to ending up being a 'second tier' European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak armed force that undermines its effectiveness to allies, a specialist has actually warned.

Research teacher Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning brand-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 present development rates.

The stark assessment weighed that succeeding government failures in guideline and bring in investment had caused Britain to lose out on the 'industries of the future' courted by established 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 evaluates that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in regards to per capita earnings by 2030, and that the main European country's armed force will soon surpass the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and devices on the present trajectory.

'The problem is that when we are devalued to a second tier middle power, it's going to be almost impossible to get back. Nations do not 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 tough decisions right now.'

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

Dr Ibrahim invited the federal 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 influential power.

With a weakening commercial base, Britain's usefulness to its allies is now 'falling behind 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, but likewise a smaller sized army and one that is not able to sustain deployment at scale.'

This is of particular issue at a time of increased geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe's rapid 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 massive oversight on the part of subsequent federal governments, not just Starmer's problem, of stopping working to invest in our military and essentially contracting out security to the United States and NATO,' he told MailOnline.

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

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low performance are absolutely nothing brand-new. But Britain is now likewise 'stopping working to change' to the Trump administration's shock to the rules-based global order, stated Dr Ibrahim.

The former advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review kept in mind 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 vestiges of its military may and financial power.

The U.K., he stated, 'appears to be making progressively expensive 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 analysis.

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

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

Calls for the U.K. to provide reparations for its historical role in the servant trade were revived also in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a conference of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the agenda.

A Challenger 2 main battle 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 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 threat.

'We comprehend soldiers and rockets however fail to totally envisage the risk that having no alternative to China's supply chains may have on our capability to react to military aggressiveness.'

He recommended a new security design to 'improve the U.K.'s strategic dynamism' based upon a rethink of migratory policy and danger assessment, access to rare earth minerals in a market dominated by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence by means of 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 diminished power, reliant on more powerful allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,' the Foreign Policy columnist said.

'As worldwide financial competitors heightens, the U.K. must choose whether to accept a bold growth agenda or resign itself to irreparable decrease.'

Britain's dedication to the concept of Net Zero might be laudable, but the pursuit will prevent development and unknown tactical objectives, he cautioned.

'I am not stating that the environment is trivial. But we simply 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 significant resources at our disposal.'

Nuclear power, including using small reactors, could be a benefit for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

'But we have actually failed to commercialise them and undoubtedly that's going to take a significant quantity of time.'

Britain did introduce a new funding design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour political leaders had actually firmly insisted was key to discovering the cash for expensive plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain's development company, has been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing companies in the house, entrepreneurs have warned a wider culture of 'threat hostility' in the U.K. stifles 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 regularly stopped working to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian risk', allowing the pattern of managed decrease.

But the revival of autocracies on the world phase threats further undermining the rules-based international order from which Britain 'advantages enormously' as a globalised economy.

'The risk to this order ... has developed partly since of the lack of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to subvert the acknowledgment of the real hiding risk they posture.'

The Trump administration's alerting 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 cautioned that this is inadequate. He advised 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 essentially bodies that take up immense amounts of funds and they'll simply keep growing substantially,' he told MailOnline.

'You might double the NHS budget plan and it will truly not make much of a damage. So all of this will need fundamental reform and will take a great deal of courage from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them unpopular.'

The report outlines suggestions in radical tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored focus on securing Britain's role as a leader in state-of-the-art industries, energy security, and worldwide trade.

Vladimir Putin speaks to the governor of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky throughout their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File picture. Britain's economic stagnancy might see it soon become a 'second tier' partner

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

Britain is not alone in falling behind. The Trump administration's insistence that Europe spend for its own defence has actually cast fresh light on the Old Continent's alarming scenario 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 been 'controlled' because around 2018, showing 'complex challenges of energy dependence, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and moving international trade characteristics'.

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

This stays vulnerable, however, with residents increasingly agitated by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of budget friendly accommodation and trapped in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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