As he bounded off stage to the tune of Get Ready by the Temptations on Monday night, Jeremy Corbyn told a rally in Salford he would be “delighted” to fight a general election and beamed: “We will win!” Eleven miles away, in the Labour heartland of Wigan, there was slightly less enthusiasm.

“It would be a disaster,” said the fish and chip shop owner Andy Mappouridis, 55, during the lunchtime rush. “It’s the wrong time to have an election. I voted to remain but now we’ve got to get out – we’ve got no choice. If we choose not to leave we’ve lost all of our bargaining tools.”

Dishing up £1.20 cones of chips to a queue of students, Mappouridis said he had always voted Labour but was now politically homeless. “I’m a Labour voter but I wouldn’t vote for any one of them at the moment,” he said. “I don’t particularly like Boris Johnson but he’s got to go through with it.”

Wigan has chosen a Labour MP in every general election since 1918 but the town voted strongly (63.9%) to leave the European Union in 2016, rejecting the party’s campaign to remain. In May’s European elections, a resounding 41% of voters backed the Brexit party, pushing Labour into second place as it shed almost one-fifth of its vote compared with 2014.

The town’s MP, Lisa Nandy, has warned Labour against taking an unequivocally pro-EU stance, describing it as a “final breach of trust” with working-class voters, but has expressed concern about the damage a no-deal Brexit would do to Wigan, with its ageing population and high proportion of small to medium-sized businesses.

As Labour has moved gradually towards backing a second referendum, Nandy has braced herself for a backlash at the polls. However, she has a sizeable majority of more than 16,000 votes and believes the impact of the government’s spending cuts will convince many voters not to desert her party. “I wouldn’t be at all complacent because I think the frustration with Labour is very evident,” she said on Tuesday. “But I think people would look beyond Brexit and consider issues like crime and healthcare and that would put us in a firmer position.”

Dave Martin. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Setting up his flower stall on Wigan’s outdoor market, Dave Martin said he was “sick to the bloody teeth of it” when asked about a possible imminent election. The 62-year-old, from nearby Chorley, stopped voting for Labour 10 or 15 years ago – ending a family tradition stretching back to his grandfather – because he felt the party was no longer “for working people”.

As for the European Union, he wants out. “My dad didn’t fight in world war two, and his dad in world war one, to be governed by this bunch of tossers that we haven’t voted for,” he said. Martin’s business would be harmed by a no-deal Brexit, pushing up the cost of flowers imported from the Netherlands. But it would still be worth it, he said: “I just want to be out.”

Jane and Ray Woolley. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

On their rugs stall, Ray and Jane Woolley said they too had stopped voting Labour, because “they let too many people in”. Both voted to leave and said the debate had been taken over by “doom and gloom scaremongerers”. If there was an election next month, they would vote Conservative. “There shouldn’t be an election. If we’re going to leave, leave,” said Ray Woolley, 70.

Martin and the Woolleys bemoan the “collapse” of shopping in their market, which is only half-occupied on Tuesday. Business has suffered since they opened 20 to 30 years ago, they said, because of the rise of internet shopping, sprawling new supermarkets and American-style malls such as the Trafford Centre and Wigan’s Grand Arcade. All of this leads to a feeling that things used to be better. “Me and my wife knew, before we came into Europe and everything was OK, you could get a job and save up for a house. You can’t do it now. They’ve inflated all the prices, Europe,” said Ray Woolley.

Kathy Stokes. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Enjoying a day out with her four-year-old granddaughter, who starts her first school on Wednesday, Kathy Stokes, 50, said she was sick of politicians not delivering “what the country voted for”. “I’m not political but basically it doesn’t matter what I think because nobody’s listening,” she said. “That’s the most political statement I’ve made in my life.”

Not every Wiganer is pro-Brexit. Leah Tunstall, 16, and her friends said it was unfair they were not allowed a vote and that, if they could, they would choose to stay in the EU. “When we leave we’re going to have no good [currency rate] for America. My parents are very stressed about that. We are going to have to have passports everywhere. They shouldn’t have done it,” said Tunstall.

Each of Tunstall’s four friends, on a break from their first day studying art at Wigan college, said they had hoped to work abroad in future but feared their options were now limited. “I just think it’s causing problems but we’re going to have to leave now,” said Lauren Gossen, 16. “I don’t know why David Cameron even let everyone decide – he should have just done it himself if he’s just going to quit. He’s a saddo.”