AS any great comic will tell you, it is all about the timing. So Labour’s Kezia Dugdale and Jeremy Corbyn yesterday revealed themselves to be the Morecambe and Wise of British politics, the Stan and Laurel of democratic socialism and the Basil and Manuel of party discipline.

How? On the same day it emerged that the Scottish Labour leader was set to defy the UK leader and vote against the triggering of Article 50, the Scots party unveiled the slogan for its spring conference: Together We’re Stronger.

If this was the sort of column that contained the phrase “you couldn’t make it up”, it would be being deployed right about now.

Going by yesterday’s proceedings in Holyrood, the Scottish Government’s taste in comedy tends towards the more absurdist. Since the Supreme Court ruled that MPs could have a say on triggering Article 50 but not MSPs, the vote was purely symbolic. Ah, but there was more to it, said Nicola Sturgeon. The First Minister, who could teach Messrs Barnum and Bailey a few things when it comes to selling tickets, said this was “one of the most significant votes in the history of the Scottish Parliament since devolution”, a “key test” of whether Scotland’s voice was being heeded.

And there was you cynically thinking it was just yet another chance to float the idea of a second independence referendum.

The debate at Holyrood was important, not for the reasons outlined by Ms Sturgeon but for what it said about the relationship between Labour in Scotland and the party in the rest of the UK. To use a term deployed by one of their own, the branch office is revolting and head office cannot do anything about it, or prefers not to.

This is one of those situations where, observed from a far, the actions of everyone are understandable but at the same time ridiculous. Take Ms Dugdale.

She did not back Mr Corbyn for the Labour leadership, preferring Owen Smith. She campaigned loud and often to stay in the EU, on occasion standing shoulder to shoulder with all the other main party leaders in Scotland, including Ruth Davidson and Ms Sturgeon.

She has made it clear since the EU vote that she does not favour the kind of hard Brexit, leaving the single market without a deal, that Downing Street is keeping as an option.

As Ms Dugdale gazes towards London, what does she see? A party leader who, when he eventually did campaign for Remain, did so with all the enthusiasm of a steamrollered banana.

Notorious for rebelling against the whip while an MP, Mr Corbyn nonetheless decided to impose a three-liner on his MPs on the Article 50 second reading vote, only to have 47 of them, including sole Scottish MP Ian Murray, rebel against him.

He has done the same with the vote tonight. Since last week, as far as disciplining the rebels goes, he has acted as if nothing happened. Then there was the curious case of Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, who missed the vote because of what she said was a migraine and what her critics claimed was “Brexit flu” brought on by her constituency voting solidly for Remain. At least Ms Dugdale did not send in a sick note.

Her voting against triggering Article 50, which sets the two-year clock ticking on Brexit, does leave Mr Corbyn with a headache, however. He is finding it hard enough at the best of times dealing with a Parliamentary Labour Party that, for the most part, does not want him as leader. Now the leader of the party in Scotland has shown publicly that she disagrees with him, again.

You may think that London’s affection for Scottish Labour has gone the way of the penny-farthing since the SNP wipeout, and that most Labour members across the Border do not care what happens here, but there remain emotional bonds with the country that gave the party its first leader.

Seeing Scottish Labour drift away matters to the Labour family in the same way that losing Scotland would have been a resigning matter for David Cameron after the independence vote.

But Ms Dugdale is in a difficult to impossible position. She cannot ignore the fact that Scotland voted to Remain by 62 per cent to 38 per cent. She cannot stand up in Parliament, like Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons, and say more in sorrow than in anger that she has to go with the majority view because leaving was not the majority view in Scotland.

As it turned out, she suffered, like Mr Corbyn, a rebellion in her own ranks, with three of the party’s MSPs opposing the Scottish Government motion.

Ms Dugdale has other considerations to bear in mind when framing Scottish Labour’s approach to the Brexit negotiations. She must know, as does everyone else, that Labour HQ’s stance is being shaped more by panic than principle. Labour MPs in England are sprinting scared from Ukip, fearing that party’s candidates will do to them what the SNP did to Scottish Labour MPs who thought they were in with the bricks.

If the polls stay as they are, Labour MPs outwith London will be fighting for their lives. Asking candidates to contest a general election on a record of opposing Brexit really would be handing them a collective suicide note.

Having said all of that, continuing to set Scottish Labour’s face against Brexit leaves Ms Dugdale with a problem down the line. If she wants Scotland to somehow stay in the single market, what price would she pay to do so? A price as high as leaving the UK?

At the moment, no: good luck going into a second independence referendum, should there be one, and explaining that position to voters.

Given the complexities, London will be delighted to look the other way on the Scottish rebellion this time. But the continuing disconnect between the branch office and HQ is a sitcom that can go on no longer.