Ministers have drawn up plans re-direct food exports to Belgian and Dutch ports if the French government impose new checks that clog up traffic to Calais in the event of a No Deal Brexit.

Lorries destined for ferries departing from Dover will be sent instead to ports along the east coast, from where they will be loaded onto boats headed for Belgium and the Netherlands, rather than wait in emergency lorry parks on the M20 and M26 motorways in Kent.

The plans are intended to ensure British firms' exports of perishable goods and "strategic" products, such as military and communications equipment, can continue unhindered.

But today a senior member of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Conservative backbenchers insists European ports would not impose new checks that would hold up freight because to do so would "directly damage their own agricultural, pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries."

Writing for telegraph.co.uk, Sir Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the group's steering committee, adds: "If European governments were to cause hold ups, they will be causing the chaos. From the perspective of their own businesses and citizens, who would they will blame? The French farmers would be rioting. This just will not happen."

In May the Government outlined plans to introduce a new queuing system on the M20, in order to allow lorries to park while waiting to cross the Channel, without blocking the road to other traffic.

It came after queues of 4,600 lorries stretched back 30 miles in 2015 as a result of a strike by French ferry workers.