KEZIA Dugdale is to snub Jeremy Corbyn when he is in Scotland this week for a leadership hustings with Owen Smith.

The Scottish Labour leader’s office said Dugdale had no plans to meet either Corbyn or Smith before or after their sole Scottish clash at Glasgow's SECC on Thursday.

Dugdale last month described Corbyn as “not competent” to lead Labour because 80 per cent of his MPs had no confidence in him, putting her support behind his challenger.

A Scottish Labour spokesman: “She doesn’t have any plans to go to the hustings and to my knowledge she has not got any meetings planned with either of them [Corbyn and Smith].”

Dugdale also steered clear of the UK Labour leadership contest last year, although at the time she was also a candidate herself in the race to be Scottish leader.

Smith, the underdog in the UK race, arrives in Scotland on Wednesday for an evening event in Edinburgh South, Labour’s sole Westminster seat north of the border.

Meanwhile Corbyn’s two-day visit kicks off in Livingston on Thursday, followed by a rally for members in a Glasgow hotel before the hustings.

There is also an intriguing, but so far mysterious, Corbyn Gets Creative event on Friday morning at the Edinburgh Fringe, before another rally in Dundee in the evening.

Although Dugdale will not meet Corbyn, some of her MSPs, including left-wingers Neil Findlay and Richard Leonard, will take part in his events.

Dugdale’s deputy Alex Rowley said he would be voting for Corbyn but not meeting him.

The first MP to resign from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet after the EU referendum yesterday insisted she had not been part of a plot or coup. Instead former health secretary Heidi Alexander said Corbyn’s leadership had simply been inept, unprofessional and shoddy.