Britain is on course to becoming a '2nd tier' European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak armed force that undermines its usefulness to allies, an expert has cautioned.

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 existing growth rates.

The plain assessment weighed that successive government failures in policy and attracting investment had actually triggered Britain to lose out on the 'markets of the future' courted by developed economies.

'Britain no longer has the industrial 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 most current 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 regards to per capita income by 2030, and that the main European nation's military will quickly exceed the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the existing trajectory.

'The problem is that once we are reduced to a second tier middle power, it's going to be virtually impossible to get back. 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 vibrant leaders who have the ability to make the hard 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 utilizes a radio to speak to Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the government's decision to increase defence spending 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 worldwide prominent power.

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

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'Not just is the U.K. anticipated to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, but likewise a smaller army and one that is not able to sustain implementation at scale.'

This is of specific issue at a time of heightened geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be among the leading forces in Europe's fast rearmament task.

'There are 230 brigades in Ukraine right now, Russian and Ukrainian. Not a single European nation 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 essentially contracting out security to the United States and NATO,' he informed MailOnline.

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

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low efficiency are absolutely nothing brand-new. But Britain is now also 'stopping working to adjust' to the Trump administration's shock to the rules-based worldwide order, said Dr .

The previous advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review kept in mind in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the organizations as soon as 'secured' by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he said, 'seems to be making increasingly costly 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 been the source of much analysis.

Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were started by the Tories in 2022, but a contract was revealed by the Labour 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 worrying tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government describes as being characterised by terrific power competition'.

Require the U.K. to supply reparations for its historic function in the slave trade were rekindled 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 primary fight tank of the British forces during 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 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 danger.

'We comprehend soldiers and missiles however fail to totally envisage the risk that having no option to China's supply chains may have on our ability to react to military aggression.'

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

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

'As global financial competitors magnifies, the U.K. should choose whether to welcome a strong development agenda or resign itself to permanent decline.'

Britain's commitment to the idea of Net Zero may be laudable, however the pursuit will prevent growth and obscure tactical objectives, he warned.

'I am not saying that the environment is not important. 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 considerable resources at our disposal.'

Nuclear power, consisting of making use of little modular reactors, could be an advantage for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

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

Britain did present a new funding design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour politicians had insisted was key to finding the cash for costly plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain's development firm, has been declared for its grants for little energy-producing business at home, business owners have alerted a larger culture of 'danger aversion' 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 consistently failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian hazard', enabling the pattern of handled decline.

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

'The threat to this order ... has actually developed partially due to the fact that of the absence of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to ponder foreign efforts to subvert the recognition of the real prowling danger they present.'

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 approximately the seriousness of purchasing defence.

But Dr Ibrahim cautioned that this is inadequate. 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 basically bodies that take up enormous amounts of funds and they'll simply keep growing substantially,' he told MailOnline.

'You might double the NHS budget and it will truly not make much of a dent. So all of this will require fundamental reform and will take a lot of guts from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them undesirable.'

The report lays out suggestions in extreme tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored focus on protecting Britain's role as a leader in modern markets, energy security, and global trade.

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

File image. Britain's economic stagnation could 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 persistence that Europe spend for its own defence has actually cast fresh light on the Old Continent's alarming scenario after years of sluggish development and reduced costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of last year that Euro area economic performance has been 'suppressed' considering that around 2018, showing 'complex challenges of energy dependency, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade dynamics'.

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

This remains delicate, nevertheless, with homeowners increasingly agitated by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of cost effective lodging and caught in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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