Nigel Farage talks about Brexit team up with Boris Johnson

       Jacques Delors’s death has sparked a Brexit ceasefire after both Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson led tributes.

       The former EU Commission president, who played an enormously influential role in shaping the bloc we know today, died peacefully in his sleep aged 98.

       A founding father of the EU’s single currency, he served as president of the European Commission for three terms – longer than any other holder of the office to date.

       Mr Delors also oversaw the creation of the Single Market, the free movement Schengen area and the student Erasmus programme.

       Despite infamous political disagreements, Brexiteers were quick to pay tribute to the giant of European politics.

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       READ MORE: Former EU chief and godfather of Remainers Jacques Delors dies aged 98

       Mr Delors died peacefully aged 98 (Image: Getty)

       Nigel Farage praised him as a “highly intelligent man”, albeit one “determined to end the nation-state as we know it”.

       The former Brexit Party leader said he’d “often thought it was a shame that we never got the chance to do battle on the floor of the European Parliament”.

       Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson also posted a touching tribute, describing him as a “towering political figure” regardless of whether you agreed with his vision for Europe.

       “Without Delors, there would have been no Maastricht treaty and no euro. Indeed without Delors, there would have been no single market.

       “He harnessed post-Cold War anxieties about Germany to create a new federal structure for Europe - and he did it with dazzling panache.”

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       Mr Johnson described him as a "towering political figure” (Image: Getty)

       The Brexit campaign leader said Mr Delors’ ideas “were never right for Britain”, however, adding “he himself later seemed to concede” that fact.

       "There are many on the continent who have doubts about the direction of the EU. But no one can doubt his legacy today.

       “Whatever you say about the modern EU - it is the house that Jacques built.”

       Mr Delors and Mr Johnson have history, with the former once penning a piece for the Telegraph during his time as Brussels Correspondent about Mr Delors's desires to create a federal Europe that he would “rule”.

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       The Sun's infamous front page (Image: The Sun)

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       The piece inspired Margaret Thatcher’s infamous “No, no, no!” Speech in the Commons, in which she railed against a European superstate and precipitated her downfall as Tory leader as splits emerged within the party over Europe.

       Two days later The Sun ran its famous “Up Yours Delors” front page, signalling Britain’s anti-integrationist mindset that would go on to see the UK vote for Brexit.

       In an interview with Mrs Thatcher’s biographer Lord Moore, Mr Delors said: “I think for Mme Thatcher I was a curious -personage: a Frenchman, a Catholic, an intellectual, a socialist”.

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