Former Labour MEP Alex Falconer has died aged 72.
Mr Falconer represented the Mid-Scotland and Fife region in the European Parliament from 1984 to 1999.
He died on Sunday in Kirkcaldy's Victoria hospital, the Labour Party said.
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, said: "Alex Falconer was my friend and was one of the most dedicated and committed trade unionists and campaigning politicians that I have ever had the privilege to know and work with.
"Throughout his life he never stopped caring about people and standing up for fairness and against injustice wherever he saw it.
"I am thinking of his wife Margaret and his family."
Born in Dundee, he was a former foundry worker and served nine years in the Royal Navy before working as an insulator at Rosyth dockyard in Fife.
He became a Transport and General Workers Union shop steward and then chairman of Fife Trades Council.
He went on to beat the Conservatives to win a seat in Europe.
Mr Falconer was a campaigner on environmental issues and was prominent in leading a number of campaigns throughout the Thatcher years, including against the poll tax and water privatisation, Labour said.
Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont said: "I knew Alex Falconer for many years as a powerful champion for working people and a great advocate for tackling inequality.
"He was a big influence in shaping the party's thinking, as an activist and later as a member of the European Parliament, and was a campaigner for a Scottish Parliament. He will be sadly missed and our thoughts are with his family."
Mr Falconer's friend and former colleague Michael Connarty MP said he was first and foremost a socialist with a healthy scepticism for the European Union's (EU) market policies.
Mr Connarty said: "Always wearing his political heart on his sleeve, Alex raised funds for the miners during the 1980s strike, at one time taking up a bucket collection in the EU Parliamentary sessions."
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