Poland Set to 'Soon Overtake Britain in Military Strength And Income'

Britain is on course to becoming a '2nd tier' European nation like Spain or Italy due to financial decline and a weak armed force that weakens its effectiveness to allies, an expert has cautioned.

Research professor Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning 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 current growth rates.

The plain assessment weighed that succeeding federal government failures in policy and bring in financial investment had actually caused Britain to lose out on the 'markets of the future' courted by established 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 wrote in The Henry Jackson Society's most current report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

The report evaluates that Britain is now on track to fall behind Poland in regards to per capita income by 2030, which the central European country's armed force will soon exceed the U.K.'s along lines of both workforce and equipment on the current trajectory.

'The problem is that once we are downgraded to a second tier middle power, it's going to be almost impossible to return. Nations don't come back from this,' Dr Ibrahim informed MailOnline today.

'This is going to be sped up decrease unless we nip this in the bud and have strong leaders who are able to make the tough choices right now.'

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 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 choice to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but cautioned much deeper, systemic issues 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 back 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 not able to sustain implementation at scale.'

This is of particular issue at a time of increased geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be among the leading forces in Europe's fast rearmament project.

'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 an enormous oversight on the part of subsequent federal governments, not just 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 tiredness 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 really lead European defence. But none of the European countries are.'

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low efficiency are nothing new. But Britain is now likewise 'stopping working to adjust' to the Trump administration's shock 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 'protected' by the U.S., Britain is responding by hurting the last vestiges of its military might and financial power.

The U.K., he stated, '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 been the source of much examination.

Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were started by the Tories in 2022, however an agreement 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 shows worrying tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government describes as being characterised by fantastic power competitors'.

Calls for 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 primary fight 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 throughout a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

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

'We understand soldiers and missiles however stop working to completely conceive of the danger that having no alternative to China's supply chains may have on our ability to react to military hostility.'

He suggested a new security design to 'enhance the U.K.'s tactical dynamism' based upon a rethink of migratory policy and danger assessment, access to unusual earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and self-reliance by means of investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

'Without immediate policy modifications to reignite growth, Britain will become a decreased power, reliant on more powerful allies and susceptible to foreign coercion,' the Foreign Policy writer stated.

'As worldwide economic competition magnifies, the U.K. must decide whether to embrace a vibrant development program or resign itself to permanent decrease.'

Britain's dedication to the concept of Net Zero may be admirable, however the pursuit will hinder growth and unknown strategic objectives, he cautioned.

'I am not saying that the environment is trivial. But we merely can not pay for to do this.

'We are a nation that has actually failed to buy our financial, in our energy infrastructure. And we have substantial resources at our disposal.'

Nuclear power, including using little modular reactors, might be an advantage for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

'But we've stopped working to commercialise them and certainly that's going to take a significant quantity of time.'

Britain did present a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour political leaders had insisted was essential to finding the cash for expensive plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain's innovation agency, has actually been declared for its grants for small energy-producing business in your home, business owners have cautioned a larger culture of 'danger aversion' in the U.K. suppresses financial 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 picture of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has consistently failed to acknowledge the looming 'authoritarian danger', allowing the trend of handled decline.

But the revival of autocracies on the world stage threats further undermining the rules-based international order from which Britain 'benefits enormously' as a globalised economy.

'The threat to this order ... has actually developed partly since of the absence of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to overturn the recognition of the true hiding hazard 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 method towards waking Britain approximately the seriousness of investing in defence.

But Dr Ibrahim alerted that this is insufficient. He urged a top-down reform of 'essentially our whole state' to bring the ossified state back to life and sustain it.

'Reforming the well-being state, reforming the NHS, reforming pensions - these are basically bodies that take up enormous amounts of funds and they'll simply keep growing substantially,' he informed MailOnline.

'You could double the NHS budget plan and it will really not make much of a dent. So all of this will need essential reform and will take a lot of guts from whomever is in power since it will make them unpopular.'

The report details recommendations in radical tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored concentrate on protecting Britain's role as a leader in high-tech industries, energy security, and international trade.

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

File picture. Britain's financial stagnation could see it soon end up being a 'second tier' partner

Boarded-up stores in Blackpool as more than 13,000 shops 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 alarming circumstance after decades of sluggish growth and reduced costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of in 2015 that Euro area financial efficiency has actually been 'subdued' because around 2018, highlighting 'multifaceted difficulties of energy reliance, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade characteristics'.

There remain extensive disparities between European economies; German deindustrialisation has hit organizations tough and forced redundancies, while Spain has grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This remains delicate, however, with locals progressively agitated by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of economical accommodation and trapped in low paying seasonal tasks.