Jeremy Corbyn visited Scotland on Thursday and claimed Scottish Labour was "stronger than ever", despite the party losing all but one of its MPs in 2015 and slipping to third place in May's Holyrood election.
Corbyn battled it out with leadership challenger Owen Smith Thursday night at a hustings event in Glasgow where the Labour leader ruled out an electoral pact with the SNP, said he won't try to prevent the UK leaving the EU, and denied he takes drugs.
Meanwhile, Smith revealed that staying inside the EU would be added to the Labour manifesto for the next general election should he become leader, and caused uproarious laughter in the crowd when he said Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale was doing a good job.
The debate was held in front of a crowd of around 500, although the SECC venue was far from full to capacity. The largely pro-Corbyn crowd frequently jeered Smith, with several furious at his "anti-democratic" wish to block the UK's exit from the EU.
In a tetchy event – marred with what Smith called "fruity language" – one point of agreement between the two contenders was that under no circumstances would Labour form a "progressive alliance" with the SNP, which Corbyn accused of stealthily supporting "austerity politics".
"The SNP are very good at pretending to adopt the clothes of Labour tradition in Scotland," said Corbyn. "The reality is something very different, and that surely is something that has to be challenged, and is challenged in the Scottish parliament."
To applause, the Labour leader added: "What the SNP is doing is actually an austerity programme that they're pretending is not an austerity programme."
On the subject of Scottish Labour, Corbyn said he would happily continue to work with Dugdale, who is backing Smith in the leadership election, but the crowd laughed in Smith's face when he claimed the Scottish Labour leader is doing a "fantastic job".
"I'm really worried that a Labour audience is laughing and jeering at the leader of Scottish Labour," Smith told the crowd. "There's a lot of entryism but presumably you do support the leader of Scottish Labour, because I think she's doing a great job," adding that he was "very, very proud" to have her backing.
The angriest part of the debate was when the two candidates strongly disagreed over whether there should be a second referendum on EU membership, or, alternatively, if Labour should attempt to block the activation of article 50 in parliament and stop the UK leaving.
Smith said that if elected leader, he would put staying in the EU in Labour's general election manifesto, and got under Corbyn's skin by suggesting the Labour leader was secretly "happy" that the UK is leaving the EU.
"[Corbyn] didn't want Labour to go into that contest arguing to stay in, because it was the opposite to what he'd been arguing for the past 30 years," said Smith. "I'm not even sure that Jeremy did vote In in the referendum."
"Owen!" Corbyn snapped back. "I thought we'd grown up and agreed we weren't going to use those kind of questions and those kind of arguments," before reminding Smith that they had shared a platform at a pro-EU event in Cardiff ahead of the referendum.
"The only people who raised that question [on how Corbyn voted] were actually the Daily Mail," Corbyn told Smith.
Another heated debate between the two was on the role of NATO. Corbyn offered a lukewarm response to whether he supports the UK's membership of the group when questioned, saying: "We are members of NATO and therefore we are part of it.
"Does that mean I don't have concerns about what NATO does? Yes I do, I want NATO to, as far as it can be, a force for peace and good in the world, and I want to see us being part of a process that brings about a de-escalation of tensions between NATO and Russia."
Smith has stepped away from his lectern to sum up and it looked so pre-planned and ludicrous that people laughed.
Later in the debate Corbyn said he backed the legalisation of medicinal cannabis and, unprompted, clarified that he does not take drugs. On the topic of obesity, he said that Coca-Cola has a lot of sugar in it and that fast food "can be enjoyable" but has a negative effect on health.
In his summing-up speech, Smith said "we can stick with Jeremy Corbyn" but before he managed to finish his sentence the crowd erupted in whoops and cheers. Corbyn received a standing ovation from the majority of the crowd.
The Labour leader will continue to campaign in Scotland at an event at the Edinburgh Festival on Friday, and Smith is expected to return to Scotland next week to continue his campaign.