Britain 'is on the brink of becoming a "second-tier" European nation like Spain due to economic decline and a weak military that makes us no use to our allies'
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 usefulness to allies, an expert has warned.
Research professor Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning new report that the U.K. has been paralysed by low investment, high tax and misguided policies that could see it lose its standing as a top-tier middle power at current growth rates.
The stark assessment weighed that successive government failures in regulation and attracting investment had caused Britain to miss 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 two months,' he wrote 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 terms of per capita income by 2030, and that the central European country's military will soon surpass the U.K.'s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the current trajectory.
'The issue is that once we are downgraded to a second tier middle power, it's going to be practically impossible to get back. Nations don't come back from this,' Dr Ibrahim told 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 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 range 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, but warned much deeper, systemic issues threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a globally influential power.
With a weakening industrial base, Britain's usefulness to its allies is now 'falling behind even second-tier European powers', he warned.
'Not only is the U.K. predicted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, but also a smaller army and one that is unable to sustain deployment at scale.'
This is of particular concern at a time of heightened geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be among the leading forces in Europe's rapid rearmament project.
'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 a massive oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not just Starmer's problem, of failing to invest in our military and essentially outsourcing 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 stand on its own and the U.K. would have been in a premium position to actually lead European defence. But none of the European nations are.'
Slowed defence spending and patterns of low productivity are nothing new. But Britain is now also 'failing to adjust' to the Trump administration's jolt to the rules-based international order, said Dr Ibrahim.
The former advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the 'weakening' of the institutions once 'secured' by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.
The U.K., he said, 'seems to be making increasingly 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 been the source of much scrutiny.
Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were started by the Tories in 2022, but an agreement was announced by the Labour government last October.
Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think thank warned at the time that 'the move demonstrates worrying strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government describes as being characterised by great power competition'.
Calls for the U.K. to provide reparations for its historical role in the slave trade were rekindled also in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a meeting 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 exercise 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 assessed that the U.K. seems to be acting against its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of risk.
'We understand soldiers and missiles but fail to fully conceive of the risk that having no alternative to China's supply chains might have on our ability to respond to military aggression.'
He suggested a new security model to 'enhance the U.K.'s strategic dynamism' based on a rethink of migratory policy and threat assessment, access to rare earth minerals in a market dominated by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence via investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.
'Without immediate policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will become a diminished power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,' the Foreign Policy columnist said.
'As global economic competition intensifies, the U.K. must decide whether to embrace a bold growth agenda or resign itself to irreversible decline.'
Britain's commitment to the idea of Net Zero may be laudable, but the pursuit will inhibit growth and obscure strategic goals, he warned.
'I am not saying that the environment is not important. But we simply cannot afford to do this.
'We are a country that has failed to invest in our economic, in our energy infrastructure. And we have significant 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've failed to commercialise them and obviously that's going to take a considerable amount of time.'
Britain did introduce a new financing model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour politicians had insisted was key to finding the money for expensive plant-building projects.
While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation agency, has been heralded for its grants for small energy-producing companies at home, entrepreneurs have warned a wider culture of 'risk aversion' in the U.K. stifles investment.
In 2022, incomes 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 failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian threat', allowing the trend of managed decline.
But the resurgence of autocracies on the world stage risks further undermining the rules-based international order from which Britain 'benefits enormously' as a globalised economy.
'The threat to this order...has developed partly because of the lack of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to deliberate foreign attempts to subvert the recognition of the true lurking threat they pose.'
The Trump administration's warning to NATO allies in Europe that they will have to do their own bidding has gone some way towards waking Britain up to the urgency of investing in defence.
But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is not enough. He urged a top-down reform of 'essentially 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 essentially bodies that take up immense amounts of funds and they'll just keep growing significantly,' he told MailOnline.
'You could double the NHS budget and it will really 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 because it will make them unpopular.'
The report outlines recommendations in radical tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a renewed focus on securing Britain’s role as a leader in high-tech industries, energy security, and global trade.
Vladimir Putin speaks with the governor of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025
File photo. Britain's economic stagnation could see it soon become a 'second tier' partner
Boarded-up shops in Blackpool as more than 13,000 stores closed their doors for good in 2024
Britain is not alone in falling behind. The Trump administration's insistence that Europe pay for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent's dire situation after decades of slow growth and reduced spending.
The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of last year that Euro area economic performance has been 'subdued' since around 2018, illustrating 'multifaceted challenges of energy dependency, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and shifting global trade dynamics'.
There remain profound discrepancies between European economies; German deindustrialisation has hit businesses hard and forced redundancies, while Spain has grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.
This remains fragile, however, with residents increasingly agitated by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of affordable accommodation and trapped in low paying seasonal jobs.
The Henry Jackson Society is a foreign policy and national security think thank based in the United Kingdom.
