Britain is on course to becoming a 'second tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to financial decrease and a weak armed force that undermines its effectiveness to allies, a professional has actually cautioned.

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

The stark evaluation weighed that successive government failures in policy and attracting investment had actually triggered Britain to miss out on out on the 'industries 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 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 examines that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in regards to per capita income by 2030, and that the main European nation's armed force will quickly go beyond the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and equipment on the current trajectory.

'The concern is that as soon as we are reduced to a second tier middle power, it's going to be virtually difficult to return. Nations don't return from this,' Dr Ibrahim informed MailOnline today.

'This is going to be sped up decline unless we nip this in the bud and have bold leaders who have the ability to make the tough choices today.'

People pass boarded up shops 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 crews 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 choice to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, however warned much deeper, systemic issues threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as an internationally prominent power.

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

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'Not only is the U.K. predicted 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 particular concern at a time of heightened geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe's fast rearmament project.

'There are 230 brigades in Ukraine right now, Russian and Ukrainian. Not a single European country to install a single heavy armoured brigade.'

'This is a massive oversight on the part of subsequent federal governments, not just Starmer's issue, of failing to buy our military and essentially outsourcing 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 in fact lead European defence. But none of the European countries are.'

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low efficiency are absolutely nothing new. But Britain is now likewise 'failing to change' to the Trump administration's jolt to the rules-based worldwide order, said Dr Ibrahim.

The former consultant 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 may and economic power.

The U.K., he stated, 'appears 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 examination.

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

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think thank cautioned at the time that 'the relocation shows worrying tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government refers to as being characterised by great power competition'.

Require the U.K. to supply reparations for its historic role in the servant trade were rekindled also in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the agenda.

An Opposition 2 main fight tank of the British forces during 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 a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

Dr Ibhramin examined 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 rockets but stop working to totally conceive of the risk that having no option to China's supply chains might have on our ability to react to military aggressiveness.'

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

'Without instant policy changes to reignite development, Britain will become a reduced power, reliant on more powerful allies and vulnerable to foreign browbeating,' the Diplomacy columnist stated.

'As global economic competition heightens, the U.K. should decide whether to embrace a vibrant growth program or resign itself to irreparable decline.'

Britain's commitment to the concept of Net Zero may be admirable, but the pursuit will prevent growth and odd tactical objectives, he alerted.

'I am not saying that the environment is not crucial. But we merely can not manage to do this.

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

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

'But we've stopped working to commercialise them and obviously that's going to take a significant amount of time.'

Britain did present a new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had insisted was crucial to discovering the cash for pricey plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation agency, has actually been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing companies at home, business owners have actually cautioned a wider culture of 'risk aversion' in the U.K. stifles financial investment.

In 2022, earnings for the poorest 14 million individuals 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 actually consistently stopped working to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian danger', permitting the pattern of handled decline.

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

'The danger to this order ... has developed partially because of the lack of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to deliberate foreign efforts to subvert the recognition of the true prowling danger they pose.'

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

But Dr Ibrahim cautioned that this is inadequate. He urged 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 use up tremendous quantities of funds and they'll just keep growing substantially,' he told MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS spending plan and it will actually not make much of a dent. So all of this will require fundamental reform and will take a lot of courage from whomever is in power since it will make them out of favor.'

The report outlines recommendations in extreme tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a renewed focus on securing Britain's function as a leader in state-of-the-art industries, energy security, and international 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 might see it quickly end up being a '2nd tier' partner

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

Britain is not alone in falling behind. The Trump administration's insistence that Europe spend for its own defence has actually cast fresh light on the Old Continent's dire scenario after decades of slow growth and decreased costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of in 2015 that Euro area economic efficiency has been 'subdued' considering that around 2018, illustrating 'diverse obstacles of energy dependency, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and moving worldwide trade dynamics'.

There stay extensive disparities between European economies