Boris Johnson’s Brexit team has been ordered to draw up plans to “get around” the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit withdrawal agreement so the prime minister can play hardball with Brussels over trade.

Officials in Taskforce Europe, run by Johnson’s EU negotiator David Frost, are working in secret on proposals to ensure that there do not need to be checks on goods passing from Britain to Northern Ireland.

They believe the new attorney-general, Suella Braverman, might have to give new legal advice to justify the move. Insiders say she was appointed because her predecessor Geoffrey Cox was not willing to countenance action that will be seen in Brussels as a breach of the exit agreement.

“There is deadly serious internal work going on about