English MP Bernie Grant, Attorney General Dame Lois Browne Evans said.

Mr. Grant -- MP for Tottenham in London and an outspoken advocate against racism and for the Overseas Territories and Caribbean -- died suddenly of heart failure at the weekend.

Dame Lois said: "We are deeply saddened by his death. He was part of what they called the first black caucus in the British Labour Party.'' She said the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) would be sending its condolences to Mr. Grant's wife and children.

Mr. Grant, a friend of former PLP leader Frederick Wade, spearheaded the party's campaign in the UK House of Commons against the recruitment of English Police officers Colin Coxall and Michael Mylod.

In 1995, he raised the controversy in the Commons and helped arrange the presentation of a petition by Mr. Wade and now-Finance Minister Eugene Cox against the appointments to the then-Conservative Government in Britain.

Mr. Grant agreed with Mr. Wade that the appointments were an attempt to "recolonise'' the Island force and smacked of racism.

He was a leading member of the anti-apartheid movement in the UK who spoke at African National Congress conferences and was also an outspoken critic of the London police who he accused of racism.

Mr. Grant, who was 56, also provoked controversy when asked to speak at the 1990 annual Founders' Day banquet of the PLP.

He urged Bermuda to look to its roots in the Caribbean and Africa and said he was sorry not to see more people in African dress in a Country with such a large black population.

He later said his visit to Bermuda had left him with some unpleasant memories and that, although the Island was beautiful, he did not like the politics.

Mr. Grant emigrated to Britain from his native Guyana, a former UK colony, in 1963.

He was the first black leader of a municipal council, London's Haringey, in the mid-1980s. He shot to national prominence in 1985 after a riot by largely black youths in part of his home area, Broadwater Farm housing estate, in which P.c. Trevor Blakelock was hacked to death.

Grant accused the predominantly white Police force of sparking the violence.

He said: "The youths around here believe the Police were to blame for what happened on Sunday and what they got was a bloody good hiding.'' He became a hate figure in the largely right-wing UK press with one tabloid dubbing him "Barmy Bernie''.

Mr. Grant later said he was not attempting to justify the killing of P.c.

Blakelock and added that he had, in fact, said that the youths of the area believed the police got a good hiding.

Only this year, London's Metropolitian Police pledged to crack down on racism in its ranks following a series of controversial cases, one involving a botched murder investigation into the knifing of a black youth.

Mr. Grant became one of a group of MPs of colour who took office after the 1987 UK general election, representing the north London constituency of Tottenham, who were among the first non-white UK MPs in more than 60 years.