When Ukip won the Clacton byelection and almost gave Labour a bloody nose in Heywood and Middleton earlier this month, Nigel Farage suggested his party was on an unstoppable upward trajectory.

Yet last Thursday, a mere fortnight after those electoral coups, Farage’s deputy, Paul Nuttall, found himself addressing an almost empty public meeting in Sheffield, the heart of Ukip’s next electoral battle. “This is Labour heartland,” he boomed at rows of vacant seats in the Victoria Hotel ballroom. “But we can win here.”

This Thursday, a week before the people of Rochester and Strood decide whether to re-elect their former Tory MP, Mark Reckless, on a Ukip ticket, one million people in South Yorkshire will go to the ballot box to vote for their new police and crime commissioner (PCC). Or rather: one million people will have the chance to do so, in a byelection the Home Office estimates will cost £1.66m.

Two years ago, when the inaugural PCC elections were held, just 14.5% of the electorate in South Yorkshire bothered to turn out. That was depressingly respectable: in Staffordshire 11.6% cast their vote. This time the turnout could be even lower, thanks to a pernicious combination of fury, disgust, apathy and lack of awareness the poll is happening.

“I won’t be voting,” said a 61-year-old woman from Rotherham at the Meadowhall shopping centre. “I don’t believe in the position.”

She said she was “quite disgusted in the whole affair” that led to Thursday’s vote, which was the resignation of Labour’s Shaun Wright from the role.

Wright, former cabinet member for children on Rotherham council, made a belated resignation as PCC last month after the Jay report into child sexual exploitation revealed that authorities in the town had turned a blind eye to the abuse of 1,400 children.

On Wednesday one of those 1,400 victims told Sky News she wouldn’t be voting and believed the PCC position should be scrapped. “They’re on a very high salary which could be used for more useful things, especially in Rotherham with what’s happened,” she said.

Last time Wright got 51% of the votes cast, meaning he won the £85,000 salary job on the first round. David Allen, the English Democrat candidate, came a distant second, on 16%, with the Tories third on 15% and Ukip fourth on 12%. If Labour’s replacement, Church of England priest and former Sheffield council deputy leader Alan Billings, doesn’t get more than 50% on the first round this time he could be in trouble: all three of his opponents represent more right-wing parties and so it’s conceivable that Labour willpick up very few second preference votes (candidates eliminated in the first round have the second preference of their supporters allocated to the remaining candidates).

That – along with widespread anger at Wright and the Labour party locally generally – is why Ukip senses a chance at topping the poll. “This is an election we can win!” Nuttall hollered at that sparsely attended public meeting last week, reminding the 40 or so party faithful present that Ukip has come second in the two parliamentary by-elections in South Yorkshire since 2010 and in this year’s European elections did better than Labour in Rotherham and Doncaster, coming a close second in Barnsley and Sheffield.

Nuttall said he had personally ensured that “serious money” was being spent on the campaign by Ukip – a necessity to have an attempt at reaching the huge electorate in South Yorkshire. There has been no freepost mailout sent to every household on the electoral roll. Instead, after paying their £5,000 deposit, the four candidates were invited to submit a 300-word mission statement to a booklet which has been placed in libraries and GP’s surgeries, as well as on the www.choosemypcc.org.uk/ website.

Lobbying such a large constituency requires deep pockets and a large army: Ukip reckons it will have printed and delivered 100,000 leaflets during the four-week campaign as it tries to deliver victory for its candidate, Jack Clarkson, a 57-year-old ex-policeman. Clarkson’s leaflets say he will “build a police force you can trust again” – though his critics say his service in South Yorkshire police for 30 years was at the time of many of the force’s darkest days, including the miners’ strike, the Hillsborough disaster and the child sexual exploitation scandals. After his retirement in 2006 he spent four years as a Liberal Democrat on Sheffield council, before leaving over tuition fees and control orders; he was re-elected on a Ukip ticket in May.

He insists he will act independently despite the obvious conflicts of interest which will arise given his past life. “I’m an honest man,” he said. “I have always served the public and done my best.” But critics say his ideas for clearing up the Rotherham debacle are muddled. During a hustings for Victim Support he claimed he wants an “FBI director” to oversee an investigation by the National Crime Agency. (Arguably, just as bizarrely, his English Democrat rival, Allen, told the hustings he thought that the long disbanded Royal Ulster Constabulary should be brought in to investigate South Yorkshire police.)

Clarkson accuses his Labour rival, Billings, of hiding his past: on the Choose My PCC website Billings makes no mention of the 13 years he spent in the highest echelons of Sheffield city council, serving as deputy to the future home secretary, David Blunkett. “Nonsense,” said Billings of the accusation. “How could I hide 13 years?” But he prefers to dwell on what is his arguably more relevant experience as a member of the Youth Justice Board. He admits he had to be persuaded to stand: “In the Labour party quite a number of people were anxious as to what might happen. They wanted somebody with a certain credibility,” he said, admitting Blunkett had urged him to run.

Knowing he needs to convince the electorate of his integrity after the row about Wright, Billings has pledged to give half of the PCC salary away to victims’ charities.

The Conservative candidate is Ian Walker, a 55-year-old engineer from Sheffield, who has the advantage of having never been a South Yorkshire councillor or police officer. But in pledging to engage with “Muslim community leaders” and imams in Rotherham he appears to be making the same mistake as many before him – Jay’s report despaired there was no attempt to engage the Muslim community beyond such leaders and imams. Walker also prefaced this pledge by telling the hustings he had “lots of Pakistani Muslim friends”, prompting some mirth among some Victim Support volunteers listening in the audience.

Whoever wins this election will probably be the party which works hardest to get its vote out. But it won’t be easy, as many voters deliberately boycott the ballot. “I know it’s happening but I’m not voting,” said Gordon Hawksley, 66. “It’s a ridiculous arrangement, absolutely bonkers, having all these political candidates. I just want the man who can cut crime and sort the police culture out.”

PCC lowlights



• In June Kent’s PCC Ann Barnes, who travels around in a Jaguar she calls “Ann Force 1” said she was “deeply sorry” for making her force “a laughing stock” in a Channel 4 documentary

• Last year Cumbria’s PCC, Richard Rhodes, was criticised after two police employees were arrested on suspicion of leaking information about a £700 bill for two chauffeur-driven trips he’d taken in the Lake District.

• In August Bedfordshire PCC Olly Martins was suspended from the Labour party after the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) referred an investigation into the disclosure of information about a death in custody to the Crown Prosecution Service.

• In January 2013 Hertfordshire’s David Lloyd was roundly mocked for suggesting charging suspects for the time they spend in a police cell.

• This article was amended on 30 October 2014. An earlier version referred to “Islams” where “imams” was meant.