Ron Brown was the hard-left Scottish MP with bouffant hair and piercing eyes behind enormous glasses who became one of the chief irritants to Neil Kinnock’s attempts to pull Labour out of the wilderness. While Brown was a hardworking and popular consituency MP, his passionate single-mindedness led him into conflict with those in charge of his party and also Parliament.

In 1988 he was suspended from the Commons for three months after he damaged the mace by banging it on the floor during a heated debate on benefit cuts. Such a withdrawal of the Labour whip was a rare sanction.

His constituents appeared to enjoy his rebellious side, including a court appearance for refusing to pay the poll tax, his implacable opposition to nuclear weapons, his cheerleading for Colonel Gaddafi and criticism of Western support for Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet occupation. His support for Militant and rumours of extramarital affairs and an association with the former KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky were largely dismissed or ignored.

But the local party’s patience wore thin when he was convicted in 1990 of damaging his former lover’s flat in a jealous rage. Brown’s long-suffering wife was a popular local Labour activist, and it took little prompting from the national leadership for the constituency to deselect him as MP. Always a fighter, Brown stood as an Independent Labour candidate in the 1992 election. He polled a creditable 4,142 but came nowhere near the official Labour candidate.

Ronald Brown was born in Edinburgh, and educated at Ainslie Park High School and Bristo Technical Institute. After National Service in the Royal Signals, he took an engineering apprenticeship during which he was badly injured in an electrical fire. The accident left his face partially paralysed and requiring plastic surgery.

He became actively involved in the engineering union, was elected shop steward and then local branch chairman before being serving on Edinburgh Town Council and then the regional council from 1974.

On the retirement of Ronald King (later Lord) Murray at the 1979 election, he was selected to stand at Edinburgh Leith. Brown steadily increased Murray’s four-figure majority to more than 11,000 by the 1987 election.

After his failure to regain his seat as an independent, Brown stood unsuccessfully for the Scottish Socialist Party in the first Scottish Parliament elections in 1999.

He resumed his union activity, serving as vice-chairman of the Edinburgh Trade Union Council from 1998-2000.

He manned a helpline at Edinburgh District Council and was also an “agony uncle” for a local newspaper, prompting one political opponent to note: “Giving Ron an advice column is like putting Peter Rabbit in charge of the lettuce patch.”

His wife, May, died in 1995. He is survived by their two sons.

Ron Brown, MP for Edinburgh Leith, 1979-92, was born on June 29, 1940. He died of liver failure on August 3, 2007, aged 67