‘Anyone but Peter Bone’: voters turn to Labour and Reform UK as Wellingborough byelection nears

Reform candidate Ben Habib, centre, making his pitch at the Fine Dining burger bar in Wellinborough last week. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

It is just after noon on market day in Wellingborough town centre and the owner of the Fine Diner mobile burger bar, William Holden, is waiting for his next customer.

The last stallholder has already packed up and left and the square is almost empty. On its walls are photographs of how it used to be in 1904, packed with traders and buzzing, in an age when Wellingborough thrived and sold shoes and boots to the world.