Poland Set to ‘Quickly Overtake Britain in Military Strength And Income’

Britain is on course to becoming a ‘second tier’ European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak military that weakens its effectiveness to allies, a professional has cautioned.

Research teacher Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning brand-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 plain assessment weighed that successive federal government failures in policy and drawing in investment had caused Britain to miss out on 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 assesses that Britain is now on track to fall behind Poland in regards to per capita earnings by 2030, and that the main European country’s armed force will quickly exceed the U.K.’s along lines of both workforce and devices on the existing trajectory.

‘The issue is that once we are reduced to a 2nd tier middle power, it’s going to be practically difficult to return. Nations do not 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 bold leaders who are able to make the tough choices right now.’

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 talk to Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim invited the government’s decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, however alerted much deeper, systemic concerns threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a globally influential power.

With a weakening commercial base, Britain’s usefulness to its allies is now ‘falling behind even second-tier European powers’, he warned.

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‘Not just is the U.K. anticipated 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 issue at a time of heightened geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe’s quick rearmament job.

‘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 huge oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not just Starmer’s issue, of stopping working to purchase our military and essentially contracting out security to the United States and NATO,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘With the U.S. getting fatigue of providing 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 really lead European defence. But none of the European nations are.’

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low productivity are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now likewise ‘stopping working to adjust’ to the Trump administration’s shock to the rules-based worldwide order, said 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 once ‘protected’ by the U.S., Britain is reacting by damaging the last vestiges of its military might and financial power.

The U.K., he stated, ‘appears to be making increasingly costly 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 been the source of much analysis.

Negotiations 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 believe thank alerted at the time that ‘the move shows worrying tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government refers to as being characterised by great power competition’.

Calls for the U.K. to provide reparations for its historical function in the servant trade were rekindled also in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the agenda.

An Opposition 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 examined that the U.K. appears to be acting versus its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of threat.

‘We understand soldiers and rockets but stop working to fully develop of the threat that having no alternative to China’s supply chains may have on our ability to respond to military aggression.’

He suggested a brand-new security model to ‘enhance the U.K.’s tactical dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and risk evaluation, access to unusual earth minerals in a market dominated by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence via financial investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

‘Without instant policy modifications to reignite development, Britain will end up being a reduced power, reliant on more powerful allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,’ the Foreign Policy writer stated.

‘As worldwide financial competition intensifies, the U.K. should choose whether to embrace a vibrant growth program or resign itself to irreversible decrease.’

Britain’s commitment to the concept of Net Zero may be admirable, but the pursuit will inhibit development and odd strategic objectives, he alerted.

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

‘We are a nation that has failed to purchase our economic, in our energy facilities. And we have substantial resources at our disposal.’

Nuclear power, including the use of small modular reactors, could be a boon for the British economy and energy independence.

‘But we have actually failed to commercialise them and certainly that’s going to take a considerable quantity of time.’

Britain did present a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had actually firmly insisted was key to discovering the cash for expensive plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s development firm, has actually been declared for its grants for little energy-producing companies at home, business owners have actually alerted a larger 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 regularly stopped working to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian danger’, permitting the trend of managed decrease.

But the revival of autocracies on the world phase risks further undermining the rules-based international order from which Britain ‘benefits enormously’ as a globalised economy.

‘The hazard to this order … has actually established partly since of the lack of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to overturn the recognition of the real prowling danger they position.’

The Trump administration’s warning to NATO allies in Europe that they will need 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 inadequate. He prompted a top-down reform of ‘basically our entire 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 use up immense quantities of funds and they’ll just keep growing considerably,’ he told MailOnline.

‘You might double the NHS budget and it will actually not make much of a damage. So all of this will require basic reform and will take a lot of guts from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them unpopular.’

The report outlines recommendations in radical tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a restored focus on securing Britain’s role as a leader in modern markets, energy security, and worldwide trade.

Vladimir Putin consults with the governor of Arkhangelsk area Alexander Tsybulsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File photo. Britain’s financial stagnation could see it soon end up being a ‘second tier’ partner

Boarded-up stores in Blackpool as more than 13,000 stores 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 circumstance after decades of sluggish growth and lowered costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial efficiency has been ‘controlled’ since around 2018, highlighting ‘complex challenges of energy dependence, producing vulnerabilities, and moving worldwide trade characteristics’.

There remain extensive disparities between European economies; German deindustrialisation has struck organizations tough and forced redundancies, while Spain has actually grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This stays fragile, nevertheless, with citizens increasingly upset by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of inexpensive accommodation and caught in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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