Leading Brexiteers have backed a package of concessions to help unlock a Canada-style trade deal with Brussels.

Senior members of the Conservatives’ 60-strong European Research Group (ERG) have told The Telegraph they would support EU officials being stationed at UK ports after Brexit to break the impasse with Brussels.

The MPs, including Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the ERG chairman, also suggest that they would support the Government enforcing EU rules on goods exported to the bloc by firms in this country.

Brexiteers regard both proposals as a significant concession to help avoid a “hard” border with Northern Ireland, while paving the way for a much looser relationship with the EU than under the “common rulebook” envisaged by Theresa May’s Chequers plan.

Michel Barnier last month in front of the Commons Brexit committee discussed the idea of EU officials carrying out checks in UK ports. Today is the first time senior Brexiteers have publicly supported such a plan.

It comes as ministers are in private talks over trying to “pivot” from the Chequers plan to a looser Canada-style agreement within weeks if the EU formally declines the Prime Minister’s offer. One Cabinet minister said government figures in favour of the plan had discussed billing the change as a compromise between the two sets of proposals, to allow Mrs May to save face.