Britain is on course to ending up being a '2nd tier' European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak military that weakens its usefulness to allies, a professional has actually warned.

Research professor 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 could see it lose its standing as a top-tier middle power at existing growth rates.

The stark assessment weighed that successive federal government failures in policy and attracting financial investment had actually triggered Britain to miss out on 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 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 central European nation's military will quickly go beyond the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and devices on the current trajectory.

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

'This is going to be accelerated decrease unless we nip this in the bud and have bold leaders who have the ability to make the challenging choices right now.'

People pass boarded up stores on March 20, 2024 in Hastings, England

A British soldier reloads his rifle on February 17, 2025 in Smardan, Romania

Staff Sergeant Rai uses a radio to speak to Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire variety on Rovajärvi Training Area, during 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 alerted much deeper, systemic concerns threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a globally prominent power.

With a weakening industrial 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. forecasted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, but also a smaller sized army and one that is not able to sustain release at scale.'

This is of particular concern 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 install a single heavy armoured brigade.'

'This is a huge oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not simply Starmer's problem, of failing to invest in our military and basically contracting out security to the United States and NATO,' he informed MailOnline.

'With the U.S. getting fatigue of offering 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 really lead European defence. But none of the European countries are.'

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

The former consultant to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the institutions when 'secured' by the U.S., Britain is reacting by damaging the last vestiges of its military may and economic power.

The U.K., he stated, 'seems 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 scrutiny.

Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but an arrangement was announced by the Labour federal government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security believe thank warned at the time that 'the move shows worrying tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government explains as being characterised by excellent power competition'.

Require the U.K. to offer reparations for its historical function in the servant trade were revived likewise in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the agenda.

A Challenger 2 main 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 during 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 understand soldiers and missiles however fail to completely conceive of the danger that having no option to China's supply chains may have on our capability to react to military aggression.'

He suggested a new security model to 'boost the U.K.'s tactical dynamism' based on a rethink of migratory policy and danger assessment, access to unusual earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and self-reliance via investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on atomic energy.

'Without immediate policy modifications to reignite growth, Britain will end up being a decreased power, reliant on more powerful allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,' the Diplomacy writer stated.

'As international financial competitors magnifies, the U.K. must decide whether to embrace a strong development agenda or resign itself to irreversible decline.'

Britain's commitment to the concept of Net Zero might be admirable, however the pursuit will inhibit growth and unknown tactical objectives, he warned.

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

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

Nuclear power, including the use of little modular reactors, might be a boon for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

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

Britain did introduce a new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had actually firmly insisted was crucial to discovering the cash for costly plant-building tasks.

While Innovate UK, Britain's development firm, has been declared for its grants for little energy-producing companies in the house, entrepreneurs have actually alerted a larger culture of 'risk aversion' 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 photo of The Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has actually regularly failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian risk', allowing the trend of managed decrease.

But the renewal of autocracies on the world stage risks further undermining the rules-based global order from which Britain 'advantages enormously' as a globalised economy.

'The risk to this order ... has established partially because of the lack of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to subvert the acknowledgment of the true prowling 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 buying defence.

But Dr Ibrahim alerted that this is not enough. He advised a top-down reform of 'basically 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 basically bodies that take up enormous quantities of funds and they'll just keep growing considerably,' he informed MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS budget plan and it will truly not make much of a dent. So all of this will need essential reform and will take a lot of courage from whomever is in power since it will make them unpopular.'

The report lays out recommendations in radical tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored concentrate on protecting Britain's function as a leader in high-tech markets, energy security, and international trade.

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

File picture. Britain's financial stagnation might see it soon end up being a '2nd tier' partner

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

Britain is not alone in falling back. The Trump administration's insistence that Europe pay for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent's dire circumstance after years of slow development and reduced spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of last year that Euro area financial efficiency has been 'suppressed' since around 2018, illustrating 'diverse difficulties of energy reliance, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade dynamics'.

There remain extensive discrepancies 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 stays fragile, nevertheless, with residents significantly upset by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of cost effective accommodation and trapped in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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