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 undermines its effectiveness to allies, a specialist has actually warned.

Research teacher 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 growth rates.

The stark assessment weighed that succeeding government failures in policy and attracting financial investment had actually triggered Britain to lose out on the ‘industries 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 newest 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 terms of per capita income by 2030, and that the main European country’s armed force will soon go beyond the U.K.’s along lines of both manpower and devices on the current trajectory.

‘The issue is that once we are downgraded to a second tier middle power, it’s going to be practically difficult to get back. Nations do not return from this,’ Dr Ibrahim informed MailOnline today.

‘This is going to be accelerated decline unless we nip this in the bud and have strong leaders who have the ability to make the difficult decisions 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 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 decision to increase defence spending 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 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 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 rapid rearmament task.

‘There are 230 brigades in Ukraine right now, 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 federal governments, not simply Starmer’s problem, of stopping working to invest in our military and basically outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘With the U.S. getting fatigue of supplying the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now has to stand 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 spending and patterns of low efficiency are absolutely nothing new. But Britain is now also ‘failing to adjust’ to the Trump administration’s jolt to the rules-based international order, stated 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 institutions once ‘secured’ by the U.S., Britain is responding by damaging the last vestiges of its military might and financial power.

The U.K., he said, ‘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 examination.

Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were started by the Tories in 2022, however an agreement 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 move demonstrates stressing strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government explains as being characterised by terrific power competition’.

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

A Challenger 2 main battle 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 an interview in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

Dr Ibhramin assessed that the U.K. seems to be acting against its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of danger.

‘We understand soldiers and rockets however stop working to fully conceive of the threat that having no alternative to China’s supply chains might have on our ability to react to military aggressiveness.’

He recommended a new security design to ‘enhance the U.K.’s strategic dynamism’ based on a rethink of and danger evaluation, access to uncommon earth minerals in a market controlled 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 immediate policy modifications to reignite development, Britain will become a reduced power, reliant on more powerful allies and susceptible to foreign browbeating,’ the Foreign Policy writer said.

‘As international economic competition intensifies, the U.K. should decide whether to welcome a strong growth program or resign itself to permanent decline.’

Britain’s dedication to the idea of Net Zero may be admirable, however the pursuit will inhibit development and obscure strategic goals, he alerted.

‘I am not saying that the environment is trivial. But we simply can not afford to do this.

‘We are a country that has failed to invest in our financial, in our energy infrastructure. And we have considerable resources at our disposal.’

Nuclear power, including making use of small modular reactors, could be a benefit for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

‘But we’ve failed to commercialise them and clearly that’s going to take a substantial amount of time.’

Britain did present a brand-new financing model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had actually insisted was crucial to finding the money for expensive plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s development company, has actually been heralded for its grants for small energy-producing business in the house, business owners have alerted a wider culture of ‘threat hostility’ in the U.K. stifles investment.

In 2022, earnings for the poorest 14 million people 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 consistently stopped working to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian threat’, permitting the pattern of managed decrease.

But the renewal of autocracies on the world phase dangers further weakening the rules-based global order from which Britain ‘benefits tremendously’ as a globalised economy.

‘The hazard to this order … has actually established partly due to the fact that of the absence of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to subvert the recognition of the real lurking hazard they pose.’

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 as much as the urgency of investing in defence.

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is insufficient. He advised a top-down reform of ‘basically 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 take up enormous amounts of funds and they’ll simply keep growing significantly,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘You might double the NHS budget plan and it will really not make much of a dent. So all of this will need basic reform and will take a lot of guts from whomever is in power because it will make them undesirable.’

The report outlines suggestions in extreme tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a restored focus on protecting Britain’s function as a leader in state-of-the-art industries, energy security, and worldwide trade.

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

File picture. Britain’s economic stagnancy could see it soon end up being a ‘2nd 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 back. The Trump administration’s persistence that Europe pay for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent’s alarming situation after decades of slow growth and decreased costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of last year that Euro location economic performance has been ‘subdued’ given that around 2018, highlighting ‘diverse difficulties of energy dependency, making vulnerabilities, and moving worldwide trade characteristics’.

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

This stays vulnerable, nevertheless, with citizens significantly upset by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of budget friendly lodging and trapped in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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