About 2.5% of voters believed strongly enough that the UK should be independent that they voted UKIP. (I don’t have final figures yet).
That’s disappointing — I had hoped for something like twice that — but it’s still significant. Look at the seats that the Conservatives could have won with UKIP’s votes:
From Labour:
Battersea
Crawley
Dartford
Gillingham
Harlow
High Peak
Hove
Medway
Portsmouth North
Sittingbourne & Sheppey
Staffordshire Moorlands
Stourbridge
Stroud
Thanet South
Warwick & Leamington
Watford
From the Liberal Democrats:
Carshalton & Wallington
Eastleigh
Hereford
Romsey
Solihull
Somerton & Frome
Taunton
Torbay
Westmorland & Lonsdale
That wouldn’t have changed the overall outcome, but it would have left Tony Blair with a very slim majority, and the Liberal Democrats with practically no gains since 2001. These votes are there for the taking: when are the Conservatives (or Labour) going to pick them up?
Update: Harlow gets added to the list. A pro-independence Conservative party could probably have cut Labour’s majority to 34.