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

Research professor Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning brand-new report that the U.K. has 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 current growth rates.

The plain assessment weighed that successive federal government failures in regulation and drawing in investment had actually triggered Britain to lose out on the 'markets of the future' courted by developed 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 examines that Britain is now on track to fall behind Poland in terms of per capita income by 2030, which the central European country's military will soon go beyond the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and devices on the existing trajectory.

'The issue is that once we are devalued to a 2nd tier middle power, it's going to be almost impossible to return. Nations don't 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 strong leaders who are able to make the difficult decisions today.'

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 teams from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery throughout a live fire variety on Rovajärvi Training Area, throughout Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the federal government's decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, however cautioned much deeper, systemic concerns threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a worldwide influential power.

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

Why WW3 is currently here ... and how the UK will need to lead in America's absence

'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 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 quick 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 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 tiredness of providing the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now has to stand 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 spending and patterns of low efficiency are absolutely nothing new. But Britain is now likewise 'stopping working 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 kept in mind in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the institutions as soon as 'secured' by the U.S., Britain is responding by damaging the last vestiges of its military may and economic power.

The U.K., he said, 'seems to be making progressively 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, 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 move demonstrates fretting tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government explains as being characterised by great power competition'.

Require the U.K. to offer reparations for its historic function in the slave trade were revived also in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a meeting 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 exercise 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. appears to be acting against its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of danger.

'We comprehend soldiers and rockets however stop working to completely envisage the threat that having no option to China's supply chains might have on our ability to react to military aggressiveness.'

He recommended a new security model to 'boost the U.K.'s strategic dynamism' based on a rethink of migratory policy and hazard evaluation, access to rare earth minerals in a market dominated by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence through investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

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

'As global financial competitors intensifies, the U.K. must decide whether to welcome a vibrant development agenda or resign itself to irreversible decrease.'

Britain's commitment to the concept of Net Zero may be laudable, however the pursuit will inhibit growth and odd strategic goals, he cautioned.

'I am not stating that the environment is trivial. But we simply can not pay for to do this.

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

Nuclear power, consisting of making use of small modular reactors, might be a benefit for the British economy and energy independence.

'But we've failed to commercialise them and obviously that's going to take a considerable quantity of time.'

Britain did introduce a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour political leaders had actually insisted was crucial to finding the money for pricey plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation firm, has been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing business in the house, business owners have cautioned a wider culture of 'risk aversion' in the U.K. stifles financial 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', permitting the pattern of managed decline.

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

'The danger to this order ... has actually established partly due to the fact that of the absence of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to deliberate foreign efforts to subvert the acknowledgment of the true hiding threat they present.'

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

But Dr Ibrahim cautioned that this is inadequate. He urged a top-down reform of 'basically 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 use up tremendous quantities of funds and they'll simply keep growing considerably,' he told MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS spending plan and it will truly 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 undesirable.'

The report outlines recommendations in radical tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a renewed concentrate on protecting Britain's as a leader in modern markets, energy security, and worldwide trade.

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

File photo. Britain's economic stagnation could see it soon become 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 persistence that Europe spend for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent's alarming situation after decades of sluggish development and minimized costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial performance has been 'subdued' given that around 2018, showing 'multifaceted difficulties of energy reliance, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and moving worldwide trade dynamics'.

There remain extensive discrepancies in between European economies; German deindustrialisation has hit organizations difficult and forced redundancies, while Spain has grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This remains fragile, however, with citizens significantly agitated by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of inexpensive lodging and trapped in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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