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

Britain is on course to becoming a ‘second tier’ European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak armed force that weakens its usefulness to allies, a professional has actually cautioned.

Research teacher Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning brand-new report that the U.K. has been paralysed by low financial 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 assessment weighed that successive federal government failures in regulation and bring in investment had actually triggered Britain to miss out on 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 most current 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 income by 2030, which 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 problem is that as soon as we are downgraded to a 2nd tier middle power, it’s going to be practically impossible to get back. Nations do not come back from this,’ Dr Ibrahim informed 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 tough choices today.’

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

Dr Ibrahim invited the federal government’s decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but cautioned much deeper, systemic problems threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as an internationally influential power.

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

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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 unable to sustain implementation 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 fast rearmament job.

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

‘This is a massive oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not just Starmer’s issue, of failing to purchase our military and essentially outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘With the U.S. getting fatigue of offering the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now needs 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 costs and patterns of low productivity are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now likewise ‘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 as soon as ‘secured’ by the U.S., Britain is responding by hurting the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he said, ‘seems to be making increasingly pricey gestures’ like the ₤ 9bn handover of the 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 begun 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 believe thank warned at the time that ‘the relocation demonstrates worrying tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government describes as being characterised by excellent power competition’.

Require the U.K. to provide reparations for its historic role in the slave trade were rekindled also in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a conference of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the agenda.

An Opposition 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 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 danger.

‘We understand soldiers and missiles however stop working to completely envisage the danger that having no option to China’s supply chains might have on our ability to react to military hostility.’

He suggested a brand-new security design to ‘enhance the U.K.’s tactical dynamism’ based on 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 independence through investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on atomic energy.

‘Without instant policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will end up being a reduced power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign browbeating,’ the Diplomacy writer said.

‘As international financial competitors magnifies, the U.K. must decide whether to embrace a strong development program or resign itself to permanent decrease.’

Britain’s commitment to the idea of Net Zero may be admirable, however the pursuit will hinder growth and unknown strategic objectives, he warned.

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

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

Nuclear power, consisting of the use of little modular reactors, might be an advantage for the British economy and energy independence.

‘But we’ve stopped working to commercialise them and undoubtedly that’s going to take a significant amount of time.’

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

While Innovate UK, Britain’s innovation firm, has been declared for its grants for little energy-producing business in your home, entrepreneurs have actually warned a broader culture of ‘risk hostility’ in the U.K. stifles financial 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 picture of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has regularly stopped working to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian threat’, allowing the pattern of managed decline.

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

‘The threat to this order … has developed partly since of the lack of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to deliberate foreign efforts to overturn the recognition of the true hiding hazard they present.’

The Trump administration’s alerting to NATO allies in Europe that they will need to do their own bidding has actually gone some way towards waking Britain up to the seriousness of investing in defence.

But Dr Ibrahim alerted that this is insufficient. 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 basically bodies that take up enormous quantities of funds and they’ll just keep growing considerably,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘You might double the NHS budget and it will really not make much of a damage. So all of this will need fundamental reform and will take a lot of nerve from whomever is in power since it will make them unpopular.’

The report outlines suggestions 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 consults with the guv of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky throughout their conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File image. Britain’s economic stagnation might see it quickly become a ‘second tier’ partner

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

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

The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of in 2015 that Euro area financial performance has been ‘subdued’ considering that around 2018, showing ‘diverse difficulties of energy reliance, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and shifting worldwide trade characteristics’.

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

This stays delicate, nevertheless, with citizens increasingly agitated by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of budget friendly lodging and caught in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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