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

Britain is on course to ending up being a ‘second tier’ European country like Spain or Italy due to financial decline and a weak armed force that weakens its usefulness to allies, a specialist has actually warned.

Research professor 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 misguided policies that could see it lose its standing as a top-tier middle power at current growth rates.

The stark evaluation weighed that succeeding federal government failures in guideline and drawing in investment had actually triggered Britain to lose 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 latest 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 terms of per capita earnings by 2030, which the main European country’s armed force will quickly go beyond the U.K.’s along lines of both workforce and devices on the present trajectory.

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

‘This is going to be sped up decrease unless we nip this in the bud and have bold 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 refills his rifle on February 17, 2025 in Smardan, Romania

Staff Sergeant Rai utilizes 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 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 worldwide prominent 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 only is the U.K. predicted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, but likewise a smaller sized army and one that is unable to sustain release at scale.’

This is of specific concern at a time of increased geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be among the leading forces in Europe’s fast rearmament job.

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

‘This is an enormous oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not just Starmer’s problem, of stopping working to buy our military and essentially 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 needs to stand on its own and the U.K. would have remained in a premium position to in fact lead European defence. But none of the European nations are.’

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low efficiency are nothing new. But Britain is now likewise ‘failing to change’ to the Trump administration’s jolt 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 organizations as soon as ‘secured’ by the U.S., Britain is reacting by hurting the last vestiges of its military might and financial power.

The U.K., he stated, ‘appears to be making progressively expensive gestures’ like the ₤ 9bn handover of the tactical 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 scrutiny.

Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but a contract was revealed by the Labour government last October.

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

Require the U.K. to supply reparations for its historical role in the servant trade were revived also 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 fight 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 during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

Dr Ibhramin evaluated that the U.K. appears to be acting against its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of threat.

‘We understand soldiers and rockets but stop working to totally envisage the danger that having no alternative to China’s supply chains might have on our capability to react to military aggression.’

He recommended a new security design to ‘enhance the U.K.’s tactical dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and risk evaluation, access to rare earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence by means of 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 stronger allies and susceptible to foreign browbeating,’ the Diplomacy columnist said.

‘As global economic competition intensifies, the U.K. must decide whether to embrace a vibrant growth program or resign itself to permanent decline.’

Britain’s commitment to the concept of Net Zero may be laudable, but the pursuit will inhibit development and obscure strategic objectives, he cautioned.

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

‘We are a nation that has failed to invest in our financial, in our energy facilities. 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 have actually failed to commercialise them and clearly that’s going to take a considerable amount of time.’

Britain did present a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour politicians had insisted was crucial to finding the cash for costly plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s innovation firm, has been heralded for its grants for small energy-producing business at home, business owners have actually warned a wider culture of ‘danger hostility’ in the U.K. suppresses financial 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 Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has actually consistently stopped working to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian risk’, enabling the trend of managed decrease.

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

‘The hazard to this order … has established partly since of the absence of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to deliberate foreign attempts to overturn the acknowledgment of the true lurking danger they position.’

The Trump administration’s alerting to NATO allies in Europe that they will have to do their own bidding has gone some method towards waking Britain approximately the urgency of purchasing defence.

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is not enough. He urged a top-down reform of ‘essentially our whole 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 amounts of funds and they’ll simply keep growing substantially,’ he informed MailOnline.

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

The report lays out recommendations in extreme tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored focus on protecting Britain’s function as a leader in state-of-the-art markets, energy security, and worldwide trade.

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

File picture. Britain’s financial stagnancy could see it soon become a ‘second tier’ partner

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

Britain is not alone in falling behind. The Trump administration’s insistence that Europe spend for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent’s dire circumstance after decades of sluggish growth and decreased spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of last year that Euro area economic performance has actually been ‘subdued’ since around 2018, illustrating ‘multifaceted obstacles of energy dependency, making vulnerabilities, and moving global trade dynamics’.

There remain profound disparities in between European economies; German deindustrialisation has hit services hard and forced redundancies, while Spain has actually grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This remains vulnerable, nevertheless, with locals significantly agitated by the perceived 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 diplomacy and nationwide security believe thank based in the United Kingdom.

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