Yesterday’s political news coverage was dominated by the Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool and what the party’s position is on the subject of Brexit.

And across TV and radio on Sunday and Monday many political commentators were speculating that there might even be a general election before Christmas.

Conservative MP Amber Rudd has a wafer thin parliamentary majority of just 346 and Labour would love to claim the scalp of the former Home Secretary and of a woman who many still see as a future leader of the Conservative Party and potential Prime Minister.

So, with a general election perhaps just weeks away what have the two people who will be the main protagonists in that election battle been having to say about Brexit. In the 2016 referendum Hastings voted 55 per cent to leave and 45 per cent to stay.

In a TV interview on BBC2’s Politics Live three weeks ago Ms Rudd, who campaigned vigorously for the UK to remain in the EU, told host Jo Coburn: “The best shot we have, I feel, of a Brexit that is going to work for the UK is the Chequers deal the Prime Minister has.”

While on the front of her recent Hastings and Borough Matters newsletter Ms Rudd told local fishermen that Brexit was an opportunity, “to get a fairer deal for the future”.

Meanwhile Hastings and Rye’s Labour candidate in any general election, Peter Chowney, told Hastings In Focus today: “I’ve said all along that I thought a second referendum was inevitable, as there would be no option for Brexit that would secure a majority in parliament and that’s looking increasingly likely to be true.

“I would prefer a general election if the government can’t get us out of this Brexit mess they’ve got us in to, but failing that, I think there should be another referendum. And with opinion polls showing an increasing majority of the electorate believing we should now remain in the EU, I think it would have to include an option to remain.

“It would be difficult to have a referendum that failed to include the option that more than half the electorate now appear to support.”