Labour’s approach to the economy and national security risks turning Britain into a “second-tier” power, an explosive new report claims.
The dire warning comes as Britain faces a perfect storm of declining growth forecasts, soaring energy prices and spiralling debt at a time when the international rules-based order is crumbling and the authoritarianism of Putin is on the rise.
The report, by geopolitical analyst Doctor Azeem Ibrahim OBE, reveals that Britain is on track to fall behind Poland in per capita income by 2030.
“At current growth rates, the UK could lose its standing as a top-tier middle power — alongside France, Germany, and Japan —and instead become a second-tier European nation, akin to Spain or Italy,” Doctor Ibrahim warns, adding: “This economic decline directly undermines Britain’s diplomatic, military, and strategic capabilities.”
Highlighting the urgent need for growth to counter mounting threats from authoritarian regimes, the geopolitical analyst warns that while China expands its economic and military influence and Russia entrenches its grip over critical resources, Britain is paralysed by low investment, high taxation, and misguided policies that suppress its ability to compete on the global stage.
Doctor Ibrahim said: “Britain’s economic decline is not just a domestic issue—it is a fundamental threat to our security and global standing. If we fail to act now, we will cede influence to authoritarian regimes and lose the ability to shape the world in our interests.
“Without immediate policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will become a diminished power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion. As global economic competition intensifies, the UK must decide whether to embrace a bold growth agenda or resign itself to irreversible decline.”
Labour’s approach to the economy and national security risks turning Britain into a “second-tier” power, warns a new report
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Triple threat
He singles out three areas that are contributing to Britain’s decline: mass migration, the threat posed by authoritarianism abroad and green activism.
Starmer’s failure to address these challenges poses a “fundamental threat” to Britain’s economic and national security interests, Doctor Ibrahim warns.
Take immigration. The Labour government has pledged to bring down net migration but recent ONS figures project the UK population will swell to 72.5 million by mid-2032 – up nearly five million from 67.6 million in mid-2022 – mainly due to net migration.
And around 4,100 Channel migrants have crossed the Channel illegally so far in 2025, with half the total arriving in the last week alone, we can exclusively reveal.
The report upends key assumptions about mass migration, such as it boosts growth. For example, the numbers arriving continue to outstrip housing supply, driving up rent and asset prices. This boxes many Britons out of the property market – a problem for Starmer, who has made building more homes a central plank of his policy agenda.
The report also cites extensive evidence that while high-skill immigration does boost productivity, low-skilled immigration does not and it brings with it security risks, such as an opening up an “illicit black-market for labour” and leading to a lack of assimilation within communities.
Labour is also underestimating the threat posed by authoritarianism, the report claims.
Although Starmer has recently made encouraging noises on defence, Doctor Ibrahim highlights how the Government has failed to break the spell of complacency that’s gripped the Western world since the fall of the Soviet Union: that liberal democracy would ultimately win over authoritarianism.
Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and attempts to subvert democracies in Europe receive some attention, but the report’s main focus is on Labour’s stance towards China, which has used cyber expertise to steal valuable research and technology from British companies, and made direct operational threats against UK military and civilian infrastructure.
This includes attacks against MPs and the Electoral Commission. Despite these obvious breaches to national security, the UK Government’s press release claiming that the Government holds Chinese state-affiliated organisations responsible for malicious cyberattacks is now disclaimed by a notice that “This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative Government”.
As the report points out, Starmer has declined to call China a ‘threat’ since entering No 10, and is said to want a “new and pragmatic relationship” with China.
Doctor Ibrahim claims this leaves Britain vulnerable to Chinese espionage operations and more dependent on Chinese supply chains.
Instead, he demands a “renewed understanding that our enemies are capable of leveraging perception and information against us and to guard against this when formulating foreign policy goals and defining security risks”.
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Labour is also underestimating the threat posed by China’s authoritarianism
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The final section of the report is devoted to Labour’s “prioritisation of environmental activism over energy security”.
Doctor Ibrahim acknowledged that Labour is right to acknowledge that the profound risks posed by climate change require pivoting to a green economy, but its singular focus does not factor in the economic and military-industrial risks of energy dependency and energy poverty.
He writes that the “refusal of our geopolitical rivals to decarbonise with us compromises many aspects of our security and capacities relative to them”.
Labour’s target to decarbonise the grid by 2030 also increases Britain’s dependency on imported energy.
The report cites chronic underinvestment in North Sea Gas as an example, which stemmed from an “activist belief, quite divorced from economic reality, that by starving the industry of investment, and grinding production to a halt, Britain would switch to renewable power”.
The report continued: “To elaborate, this plan involves, by design, pushing up energy prices until green production is viable, In reality, as offshore gas gradually goes offline, Britain simply imports more of the gas it needs from abroad.”
This is ultimately impoverishing Britain, Doctor Ibrahim claims, noting that our annual gas imports, mostly from Norway, which drills and expands the opposite side of the very same oil fields that we are decommissioning, cost £100billion a year.
“It is superficial and ill-thought-out climate activism with a disastrous economic rationale,” he wrote.
Gas is by no means the only miscalculation of UK energy policy outlined in the report.
Fundamental technical limitations of green technologies, as well as a lack of battery capacity and infrastructural investments in the grid, will mean thousands of pounds per household are paid instead to overseas companies and governments, the report warns, adding: “This childish activism has left Britain with the most expensive electricity prices in the developed world.”
GB News has reached out to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office for comment.