Video: You're like the Mafia, Farage tells heckling MEPs

The former Ukip leader was told to retract his “unacceptable” remark by the Parliament’s president, Italian Antonio Tajani, and said that, in respect of national sensitivities, he would instead brand them “gangsters”.

The row came as the Parliament heard a string of senior MEPs insist that Britain cannot enjoy “the same or better conditions” in its relations with the European Union as full member states after Brexit.

And the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, told MEPs that he expected the UK to return to the EU in the future, when a younger generation recognises withdrawal as “a loss of time, a waste of energy and a stupidity”.

MEPs in Strasbourg were debating the European Parliament’s red lines for any withdrawal agreement in two years’ time. The European Parliament effectively holds a veto on any Brexit deal as it must be approved by a majority of MEPs in a vote after having first received the assent of a qualified majority of national leaders in the European Council.

The debate came after Prime Minister Theresa May said curbs on freedom of movement would not come into force immediately after Britain has quit the European Union.

Speaking during a trip to Saudi Arabia, Mrs May said there would be an “implementation” phase once a deal had been struck, with business and governments needing a “period of time” to adjust to the new rules.

“In terms of the deal that we negotiate and the arrangements that will come there, what we have talked about, you’ve used the phrase ‘transitional phase’; I have used the phrase ‘implementation period’,” Mrs May said.