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Published: 1:56 PM July 2, 2018 Updated: 6:16 PM September 17, 2020

A clip of the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator telling Nigel Farage he is the 'biggest waste of money in the EU' has gone viral on social media.

In the video Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt responds to the former UKIP leader's rant about the cost of the European Union by telling him it is his EU salary and lack of attendance that is the real scandal.

Speaking to the parliament, with Farage sitting nearby, he says: 'Nigel Farage has the whole morning talked about salaries and the biggest waste of money. Well you know colleagues what I think is the biggest waste of money in the European Union today, that's the salary we all pay to Mr Farage.

'That is the biggest waste of money. No Mr Farage, let's be honest about it.'

Verhofstaft also used the speech to attack Farage's lack of attendance at the fisheries committees.

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'That is the biggest waste of money. No Mr Farage, let's be honest about it. You are a member of the fisheries committee for example, and you are never there. Never. In 2011, no attendance, in 2012, no attendance.

He continued: 'It is fantastic what you are doing. You are coming here saying it is a scandal, the salaries that are paid, and you pay yourself a salary without doing any labour in your own committee that is the reality of the European Union today.

'You can laugh, I hope that this can maybe send out to the BBC maybe once and all the other private television in Britain, how you are cheating your own citizens here, all the time, already there times in a row.'

The footage, which was originally made in 2012 but recently reposted to social media, has been watched more than 3 million times on Facebook.

In his latest tweet Verhofstaft said: 'Instead of throwing dead fish in the Thames, Nigel Farage should have done his job as a member of the fisheries committee in the European Parliament, as I told him already years ago!'

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