Britain is on course to becoming a '2nd tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to financial decline and a weak military that weakens its usefulness to allies, a specialist has alerted.


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


The stark assessment weighed that successive federal government failures in regulation and drawing in financial investment had actually caused Britain to lose out on the 'industries 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 two months,' he composed in The Henry Jackson Society's latest 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 main European nation's armed force will quickly go beyond the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the existing trajectory.


'The concern is that when we are downgraded to a second tier middle power, it's going to be almost difficult to return. Nations don't come back from this,' Dr Ibrahim told MailOnline today.


'This is going to be sped up decrease unless we nip this in the bud and have strong leaders who have the ability to make the tough 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 teams from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovaj_rvi Training Area, throughout Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland


Dr Ibrahim invited the federal government's choice to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but warned 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 alerted.


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'Not only is the U.K. forecasted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, however likewise a smaller army and one that is not able to sustain deployment at scale.'


This is of specific issue at a time of heightened geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe's rapid rearmament project.


'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 federal governments, not simply Starmer's issue, of stopping working to invest in our military and essentially outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,' he told MailOnline.


'With the U.S. getting fatigue of supplying 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 nations are.'


Slowed defence costs and patterns of low performance are nothing new. But Britain is now likewise 'stopping working to change' to the Trump administration's jolt to the rules-based global 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 institutions once 'protected' by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last vestiges of its military might and economic 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 analysis.


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 alerted at the time that 'the relocation shows fretting strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government refers to as being characterised by fantastic power competitors'.


Calls for the U.K. to supply reparations for its historic role in the servant trade were rekindled also in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a conference of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the agenda.


An Opposition 2 primary battle 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 an interview 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 comprehend soldiers and rockets but fail 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 recommended a new security model to 'boost the U.K.'s strategic dynamism' based on a rethink of migratory policy and risk evaluation, access to uncommon earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and self-reliance through financial investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on atomic energy.


'Without instant policy changes to reignite development, Britain will become a lessened power, reliant on more powerful allies and susceptible to foreign coercion,' the Diplomacy writer said.


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


Britain's commitment to the concept of Net Zero might be laudable, however the pursuit will inhibit development and odd strategic objectives, he cautioned.


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


'We are a country that has actually failed to invest in our financial, in our energy infrastructure. And we have substantial resources at our disposal.'


Nuclear power, consisting of the use of small modular reactors, could be a benefit for the British economy and energy self-reliance.


'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 new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour politicians had actually firmly insisted was key to finding the cash for costly plant-building projects.


While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation firm, has actually been declared for its grants for small energy-producing companies in your home, entrepreneurs have actually cautioned a wider culture of 'risk aversion' in the U.K. stifles 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 regularly failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian threat', allowing the trend of managed decline.


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


'The hazard to this order ... has actually established partially due to the fact that of the absence of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to subvert the recognition of the true lurking threat they posture.'


The Trump administration's warning to NATO allies in Europe that they will need to do their own bidding has gone some way towards waking Britain approximately the urgency of buying defence.


But Dr Ibrahim cautioned that this is inadequate. He advised a top-down reform of 'essentially 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 use up tremendous amounts of funds and they'll simply keep growing considerably,' he informed MailOnline.


'You might double the NHS spending plan 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 guts from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them unpopular.'


The report outlines recommendations in extreme tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored concentrate on securing Britain's function as a leader in high-tech markets, energy security, and global trade.


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


File image. Britain's financial stagnancy could see it soon become a 'second 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 scenario after years of slow growth and minimized spending.


The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of in 2015 that Euro area economic performance has actually been 'suppressed' because around 2018, illustrating 'complex challenges of energy dependency, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and moving global trade dynamics'.


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


This remains fragile, however, with locals increasingly upset by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of cost effective accommodation and trapped in low paying seasonal jobs.


The Henry Jackson Society is a foreign policy and national security think thank based in the United Kingdom.


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