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

Britain is on course to ending up being a ‘second tier’ European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decrease and a weak military that undermines its effectiveness to allies, a professional has 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 current growth rates.

The plain assessment weighed that succeeding government failures in policy and bring in investment had actually caused 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 two months,’ he wrote in The Henry Jackson Society’s newest 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 earnings by 2030, which the main European country’s armed force will soon exceed the U.K.’s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the existing trajectory.

‘The concern is that when we are downgraded to a 2nd tier middle power, it’s going to be virtually impossible to get back. Nations don’t return from this,’ Dr Ibrahim told MailOnline today.

‘This is going to be accelerated decline unless we nip this in the bud and have vibrant leaders who are able to make the difficult 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 talk to Archer teams from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire variety on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the government’s decision to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, however alerted 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. anticipated to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, however likewise a smaller sized army and one that is unable to sustain deployment at scale.’

This is of specific issue at a time of heightened geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be among the leading forces in Europe’s rapid rearmament job.

‘There are 230 brigades in Ukraine today, Russian and Ukrainian. Not a single European nation to install a single heavy armoured brigade.’

‘This is a huge oversight on the part of subsequent federal governments, not simply Starmer’s problem, of stopping working to invest in our military and basically contracting out security to the United States and NATO,’ he told 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 been in a premium position to in fact 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 also ‘failing to adjust’ to the Trump administration’s shock to the rules-based worldwide order, said Dr Ibrahim.

The previous advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review kept in mind in the report that in spite of the ‘weakening’ of the organizations once ‘secured’ by the U.S., Britain is reacting by damaging the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he said, ‘appears to be making progressively 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 been the source of much scrutiny.

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

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think thank alerted at the time that ‘the move shows stressing strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government refers to as being characterised by excellent power competition’.

Require the U.K. to provide reparations for its historic function in the slave trade were rekindled likewise in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a conference of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the agenda.

An Opposition 2 primary battle tank of the British forces throughout 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 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 rockets but stop working to completely envisage the danger that having no option to China’s supply chains may have on our ability to react to military aggression.’

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

‘Without immediate policy modifications to reignite development, Britain will end up being a lessened power, reliant on stronger allies and susceptible to foreign browbeating,’ the Diplomacy columnist stated.

‘As worldwide economic competition magnifies, the U.K. should choose whether to welcome a bold development program or resign itself to irreparable decrease.’

Britain’s dedication to the concept of Net Zero might be admirable, however the pursuit will prevent development and odd tactical goals, he alerted.

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

‘We are a nation that has actually stopped working to purchase our economic, in our energy infrastructure. And we have substantial resources at our disposal.’

Nuclear power, consisting of using little modular reactors, might be a benefit for the British economy and energy independence.

‘But we have actually failed to commercialise them and obviously that’s going to take a significant amount of time.’

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

While Innovate UK, Britain’s development company, has actually been declared for its grants for little energy-producing companies in your home, entrepreneurs have actually alerted a broader culture of ‘risk hostility’ in the U.K. stifles investment.

In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million individuals fell by 7.5%, per the ONS. Pictured: Waterlooville High Street, Waterlooville, Hants

Undated file image of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has actually consistently failed to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian threat’, enabling the trend of handled decline.

But the resurgence of autocracies on the world phase threats further weakening the rules-based international order from which Britain ‘benefits tremendously’ as a globalised .

‘The risk to this order … has actually established partially because of the absence of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to ponder foreign efforts to subvert the recognition of the real prowling danger they pose.’

The Trump administration’s warning 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 seriousness 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 well-being state, reforming the NHS, reforming pensions – these are essentially bodies that take up tremendous quantities of funds and they’ll just keep growing significantly,’ he told MailOnline.

‘You might double the NHS budget plan and it will truly not make much of a damage. So all of this will need essential reform and will take a lot of courage from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them undesirable.’

The report details recommendations in extreme tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a renewed concentrate on protecting Britain’s function as a leader in modern industries, energy security, and global trade.

Vladimir Putin speaks to the guv of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky throughout their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File image. Britain’s financial 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 great in 2024

Britain is not alone in falling back. The Trump administration’s insistence that Europe pay for its own defence has actually cast fresh light on the Old Continent’s alarming situation after years of sluggish growth and reduced costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of last year that Euro location economic performance has been ‘subdued’ because around 2018, illustrating ‘complex obstacles of energy dependency, making vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade characteristics’.

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

This remains vulnerable, however, with citizens increasingly upset by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of cost effective accommodation and caught in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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