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Britain is on course to becoming a 'second tier' European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak military that undermines its usefulness to allies, a professional has warned.

Research professor Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning new report that the U.K. has actually been paralysed by low investment, high tax and misguided policies that might see it lose its standing as a top-tier middle power at present development rates.

The plain evaluation weighed that successive federal government failures in regulation and drawing in investment had triggered Britain to lose out on the 'markets of the future' courted by established 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 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 behind Poland in regards to per capita earnings by 2030, which the main European nation's armed force will soon exceed the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and devices on the present trajectory.

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

'This is going to be sped up decline unless we nip this in the bud and have vibrant leaders who are able to make the hard decisions 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 uses a radio to speak to Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery throughout a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, throughout Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the government's decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but warned much deeper, systemic problems threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a worldwide prominent power.

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

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

'Not just 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 deployment at scale.'

This is of specific issue at a time of increased geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe's fast 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 an enormous oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not simply Starmer's problem, of stopping working to buy our military and basically contracting out security to the United States and NATO,' he told MailOnline.

'With the U.S. getting fatigue of supplying the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now has to base on its own and the U.K. would have remained in a premium position to in fact lead European defence. But none of the European countries are.'

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

The previous advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the institutions as soon as 'secured' by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last vestiges of its military may and financial power.

The U.K., he said, 'appears 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 actually been the source of much analysis.

Negotiations in between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but an agreement 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 relocation demonstrates stressing tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government refers to as being characterised by excellent power competition'.

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

A Challenger 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 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 stop working to totally envisage the risk that having no alternative to China's supply chains might have on our capability to react to military aggression.'

He recommended a new security model to 'boost the U.K.'s tactical dynamism' based upon a rethink of migratory policy and risk assessment, access to uncommon earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and self-reliance through investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

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

'As international financial competitors magnifies, the U.K. needs to decide whether to welcome a strong growth program or resign itself to irreversible decline.'

Britain's commitment to the concept of Net Zero may be admirable, but the pursuit will inhibit growth and unknown strategic objectives, he alerted.

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

'We are a country that has actually failed to purchase our economic, in our energy facilities. And we have considerable resources at our disposal.'

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

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

Britain did introduce a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour politicians had insisted was crucial to discovering the cash for costly plant-building tasks.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation firm, has been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing business at home, business owners have cautioned a larger culture of 'danger hostility' in the U.K. suppresses financial investment.

In 2022, earnings for the poorest 14 million 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 stopped working to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian risk', allowing the pattern of handled decrease.

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

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

The Trump administration's warning to NATO allies in Europe that they will have to do their own bidding has actually gone some method towards waking Britain approximately the seriousness of investing in defence.

But Dr Ibrahim alerted that this is insufficient. He prompted 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 essentially bodies that take up tremendous quantities of funds and they'll just keep growing substantially,' he informed MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS budget plan and it will really not make much of a dent. So all of this will require essential reform and will take a great deal of courage from whomever is in power since it will make them out of favor.'

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

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

File picture. Britain's economic stagnancy could see it quickly end up being a '2nd tier' partner

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

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

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of last year that Euro location financial efficiency has actually been 'subdued' considering that around 2018, showing 'complex difficulties of energy dependency, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade dynamics'.

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

This stays vulnerable, nevertheless, with citizens increasingly agitated by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of budget friendly accommodation and caught in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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