In the office of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, a watercolour painting of the House of Commons hangs above his desk.

It was given to him by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith in 2003, cementing a relationship between two eurosceptic countries united in their rejection of European federalism.

But after the shock referendum result of June 2016, Britain’s looming departure from the EU risks creating a power vacuum at the heart of the world’s largest trading bloc.

And Poland, which has long piggy-backed on Britain’s circumspect approach to the EU project, now risks being sucked into the integrationist agenda led by an emboldened  France and Germany.

…