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Panicked Jeremy Corbyn has paid for a massive secret opinion poll on his leadership as rumours grow he may quit before 2020.

The Mirror has learned the under-pressure Labour leader has secretly ordered a vast opinion poll ten times the size of a normal survey to canvass views on his own future.

Mr Corbyn is keeping the results of the extraordinary 10,000-person study secret from the rest of the shadow cabinet, and from senior staffers in Labour HQ.

Only his closest ally, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell , and his most senior political aides will be allowed to see the results of what is thought to be the biggest-ever opinion poll commissioned by Labour.

“The whole thing is absolutely top secret - no-one is supposed to know about it,” a Labour insider said.

“Even the people who signed off the contract aren’t allowed to see the questions, let alone the results. They are terrified of leaks.”

Standard opinion polls conducted by polling firms for newspapers normally involve around 1,000 interviews and can cost four-figure sums to produce.

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(Image: REUTERS/Darren Staples)

Even the mega-poll conducted by the leave.eu campaign on the eve of the EU referendum - which correctly predicted the 52/48 result - surveyed only 4,000 respondents.

“As I understand it this is by far the biggest thing we’ve ever done,” the Labour source said.

Mr Corbyn’s office last night declined to comment on the survey, which is being carried out by Labour’s private polling firm BMG Research.

But they said: "No poll has been commissioned to find out whether Jeremy should quit before 2020."

The same company was behind a recent leaked survey of voters in the north of England which tested opinions on two possible successors to Mr Corbyn - shadow cabinet ministers Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner.

It comes with Mr Corbyn under massive pressure to lead Labour to victory in crunch by-elections in Stoke and Copeland on Thursday.

Party campaigners are optimistic of holding on to Stoke following the recent meltdown of their main rival, UKIP leader Paul Nuttall, but are fearful of losing Copeland to the Tories.

It would be the first time a governing party has won a seat from the Opposition in a by-election since the Tories won Mitcham and Morden in 1982 - a result which prefaced a landslide general election victory the following year.

With the party still tanking in national polls, Labour MPs are privately speculating that Mr Corbyn will quit before the next election.

But speaking on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show yesterday, Mr Corbyn’s close ally Diane Abbott insisted he will stay on as leader even if Labour loses both seats.

She said: “These are difficult by-elections. They are going to be quite tight.

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“We are hopeful of winning both of them... And if we lose one, if we lose both, I think the party will go forward.”

Asked if there would be questions over Mr Corbyn’s leadership she said: “No. There are people who’ve been opposed to Jeremy from the very beginning.

“I’m not one of them, and I think we have to go forward.”

poll loading Should Corbyn remain as leader for the 2020 election? 0+ VOTES SO FAR YES NO

Another Corbyn ally, shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, tried to dampen down expectations ahead of the showdown votes.

“I think those two by-elections are not going to be easy by-elections. Contrary to some reports Copeland is not a so-called safe Labour seat,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics.

“I haven’t written it off. I believe Labour can win both of these by-elections, but I think it will be tough and I believe it will probably be close.”

Labour’s Mayor of London Sadiq Khan - who has been critical of Mr Corbyn in the past - insisted there will be no leadership challenge even if Labour loses both seats.

“He’s won two leadership elections in the space of two years,” Mr Khan said. “I think that issue has been settled in this Parliament.”