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Labour strategists worry about Jeremy Corbyn making a blunder every time he opens his mouth.

The dithering party leader has a long history of putting his foot in it on visits to Scotland – especially on the question of independence.

But John McDonnell doesn’t make such silly mistakes.

The shadow chancellor is the brains of the Corbyn project and his every public pronouncement is carefully calculated to further his aims.

So when McDonnell used his Edinburgh Fringe appearance to unceremoniously drop his party’s opposition to a second independence referendum, he knew exactly what he was doing.

And what he was doing was acknowledging that Labour is effectively dead as a viable electoral prospect in Scotland.

(Image: IAN VOGLER/DAILY MIRROR)

The party’s UK leadership have realised their best chance of getting to Downing Street involves winning the support of Scottish MPs wearing SNP rosettes.

Everything about McDonnell’s intervention was designed to suck up to the Scottish nationalists.

Not just the pledge that a Labour Government would allow IndyRef2 but even the language used to express the point.

His description of Westminster as an “English parliament” was plucked straight from Alex Salmond’s phrasebook.

The intervention understandably infuriated local activists and once again left Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard hung out to dry.

But there was logic in McDonnell’s ruthlessness.

Scottish Labour came a humiliating fifth in the recent European Parliament elections and could well end up with zero MPs in any snap general election.

Labour can’t win power without Scotland but it also can’t win in Scotland.

The alternative is a deal with the SNP and the shape of such an agreement is slowly emerging. If Nicola Sturgeon’s MPs vote for a Labour Government and budget, they’ll be granted a second independence referendum in return.

As one senior Labour source put it: “Scottish Labour is in dire straits and it appears the UK leadership have decided to write-off the party’s chances north of the Border.

“There’s no other explanation for pulling the rug out from under a loyal ally like Richard in the way they have.

“It looks like Corbyn is laying the groundwork for a backroom deal with the SNP which might get him into power but at what cost to the UK?”

Leonard, who has made zero impression in his almost two years in charge, has not helped his cause. At every test of his leadership he has been found lacking.

During his tenure, Labour have arrived at combined positions on independence and Brexit seemingly designed to alienate the maximum number of voters.

At times it seemed like he was engaged in some weird avant-garde art project to destroy a political party for fun.

(Image: PA)

Leonard failed to stand up for former leader Kezia Dugdale when the UK party shamefully dropped financial support for her legal battle with an odious blogger.

And he presided over the most ludicrous reshuffle in living memory when he sacked two of his best performers in a way that further fragmented his already bitterly divided Holyrood group.

The 57-year-old has also been largely silent on Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal – even when former Scottish MP Jim Sheridan was controversially readmitted to the party after saying he had lost “respect and empathy” for British Jews.

And, since that worst ever election result in May, Labour have essentially been invisible in Scottish public life.

When Lord Ashcroft published a shock poll on Monday showing a majority of Scots back independence, Labour didn’t even bother issuing an official response.

Few observers noticed the omission and even fewer cared.

Labour’s opinion on the biggest Scottish political news story of the summer was, frankly, irrelevant.

Now even Labour’s shadow chancellor is wilfully ignoring Scottish Labour’s position on the independence issue.

When your own colleagues think you’re an irrelevance it’s probably time to give it up.

Of course, Leonard would say his priority is a Holyrood election and he will continue his focus on the SNP’s record in government.

On taking over from Dugdale in November 2017, he said: “Our purpose today is not just to elect a leader. My aim is to be the next Labour first minister of Scotland.”

He’s got more chance of being the next Archbishop of Canterbury.