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

Britain is on course to becoming a ‘2nd tier’ European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decrease and a weak military that undermines its usefulness to allies, a specialist has actually warned.

Research professor 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 present development rates.

The plain assessment weighed that successive government failures in regulation and attracting investment had actually triggered Britain to miss out on 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 composed in The Henry Jackson Society’s newest 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 terms of per capita income by 2030, and that the central European country’s military will soon exceed the U.K.’s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the existing trajectory.

‘The problem is that once we are devalued to a 2nd tier middle power, it’s going to be virtually impossible to return. Nations do not 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 vibrant leaders who have the ability 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 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 invited the federal government’s decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but warned much deeper, systemic concerns threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a worldwide prominent power.

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

Why WW3 is already here … and how the UK will require to lead in America’s absence

‘Not only is the U.K. forecasted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, however likewise a smaller army and one that is not able to sustain deployment at scale.’

This is of particular concern at a time of heightened geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe’s fast rearmament task.

‘There are 230 brigades in Ukraine today, 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 federal governments, not just Starmer’s issue, of failing to buy our military and essentially contracting out security to the United States and NATO,’ he told MailOnline.

‘With the U.S. getting fatigue of offering 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 really lead European defence. But none of the European countries are.’

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low productivity are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now likewise ‘failing to adjust’ to the Trump administration’s jolt to the rules-based worldwide order, said Dr Ibrahim.

The former advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review kept in mind in the report that in spite of the ‘weakening’ of the institutions once ‘protected’ by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last vestiges of its military may and financial power.

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

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

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

Calls for the U.K. to supply reparations for its historical function in the servant trade were rekindled also in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a conference of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the program.

An Opposition 2 main 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 assessed that the U.K. appears to be acting versus its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of risk.

‘We understand soldiers and rockets but fail to totally conceive of the risk that having no alternative to China’s supply chains may have on our capability to react to military hostility.’

He recommended a brand-new security model to ‘enhance the U.K.’s strategic dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and risk evaluation, access to uncommon 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 atomic energy.

‘Without immediate policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will end up being a decreased power, reliant on stronger allies and susceptible to foreign coercion,’ the Diplomacy writer stated.

‘As worldwide economic competition intensifies, the U.K. needs to decide whether to accept a strong growth agenda or resign itself to permanent decrease.’

Britain’s commitment to the idea of Net Zero might be admirable, however the pursuit will prevent growth and odd strategic objectives, he cautioned.

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

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

Nuclear power, consisting of making use of small modular reactors, might be a boon for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

‘But we have actually stopped working to commercialise them and undoubtedly that’s going to take a considerable quantity of time.’

Britain did present a brand-new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour political leaders had actually insisted was crucial to finding the cash for costly plant-building tasks.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s development company, has actually been heralded for its grants for small energy-producing companies in your home, entrepreneurs have cautioned a broader culture of ‘danger hostility’ in the U.K. suppresses financial investment.

In 2022, earnings 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 regularly failed to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian threat’, permitting the trend of managed decline.

But the renewal of autocracies on the world phase threats further undermining the rules-based global order from which Britain ‘advantages immensely’ as a globalised economy.

‘The hazard to this order … has actually developed partially due to the fact that of the lack of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to overturn the recognition of the real hiding risk they pose.’

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 approximately the seriousness of buying defence.

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is insufficient. He urged a top-down reform of ‘basically 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 essentially bodies that use up enormous amounts of funds and they’ll simply keep growing considerably,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘You could double the NHS spending plan and it will actually 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 lays out suggestions in radical tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a restored focus on protecting Britain’s role as a leader in modern markets, energy security, and international trade.

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

File picture. Britain’s economic stagnation could see it quickly become a ‘2nd tier’ partner

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

Britain is not alone in falling behind. The Trump administration’s persistence that Europe spend for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent’s alarming circumstance after decades of sluggish development and lowered costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of last year that Euro area economic efficiency has actually been ‘controlled’ considering that around 2018, highlighting ‘complex obstacles of energy dependency, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting global trade characteristics’.

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

This remains delicate, however, with residents progressively upset by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are of economical accommodation and caught in low paying seasonal tasks.

The Henry Jackson Society is a diplomacy and nationwide security believe thank based in the United Kingdom.

SpainPoland