Britain is on course to ending up being a '2nd tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decrease and a weak armed force that undermines its usefulness to allies, an expert has warned.

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

The plain evaluation weighed that succeeding government failures in regulation and bring in investment had actually triggered 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 wrote 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 back Poland in terms of per capita earnings by 2030, and that the main European country's military will quickly surpass the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the existing trajectory.

'The issue is that when 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 accelerated decline unless we nip this in the bud and have vibrant leaders who have the ability to make the challenging choices 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 teams from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery throughout a live fire variety on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the federal government's decision 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 an internationally influential power.

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

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'Not just is the U.K. predicted 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 concern at a time of heightened geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be among 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 mount a single heavy armoured brigade.'

'This is a huge 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 told MailOnline.

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

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low productivity are absolutely nothing brand-new. But Britain is now also 'stopping working to adjust' to the Trump administration's shock to the rules-based global order, said 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 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, '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 been the source of much scrutiny.

Negotiations in between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, however 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 stressing tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government describes as being characterised by terrific power competitors'.

Calls for the U.K. to supply reparations for its historical function 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 program.

A Challenger 2 main fight tank of the British forces throughout 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 an interview in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

Dr Ibhramin examined that the U.K. appears 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 danger that having no option to China's supply chains may have on our ability to react to military aggression.'

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

'Without instant policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will become a lessened power, reliant on stronger allies and susceptible to foreign browbeating,' the Foreign Policy columnist stated.

'As worldwide financial competition heightens, the U.K. needs to decide whether to embrace a vibrant growth agenda or resign itself to permanent decrease.'

Britain's dedication to the concept of Net Zero might be laudable, but the pursuit will prevent growth and unknown strategic objectives, he warned.

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

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

Nuclear power, including the usage of little modular reactors, might be a boon for the British economy and energy independence.

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

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

While Innovate UK, Britain's development firm, has been heralded for its grants for small energy-producing companies in the house, business owners have cautioned a larger culture of 'threat hostility' in the U.K. suppresses investment.

In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million people 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 regularly stopped working to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian risk', allowing the trend of handled decline.

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

'The risk to this order ... has actually developed partially since of the absence of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to deliberate 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 need to do their own bidding has gone some way towards waking Britain approximately the seriousness of buying defence.

But Dr Ibrahim alerted that this is insufficient. He prompted 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 essentially bodies that take up immense amounts of funds and they'll simply keep growing significantly,' he informed MailOnline.

'You might double the NHS budget and it will truly not make much of a dent. So all of this will need fundamental reform and will take a great deal of nerve 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 immigration policies, and a restored concentrate on securing Britain's function as a leader in modern industries, energy security, and international trade.

Vladimir Putin talks with the guv of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky during their conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File photo. Britain's financial stagnancy could see it soon end up being a '2nd tier' partner

Boarded-up stores in Blackpool as more than 13,000 stores 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 cast fresh light on the Old Continent's dire scenario after years of sluggish growth and reduced spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial performance has actually been 'subdued' since around 2018, showing 'multifaceted obstacles of energy dependence, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and moving worldwide trade dynamics'.

There remain extensive inconsistencies between European economies; German deindustrialisation has struck businesses tough and forced redundancies, while Spain has actually grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This stays vulnerable, however, with locals significantly agitated by the viewed pandering to as they are priced out of cost effective lodging and trapped in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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