YOUR MSPs have been set free from Holyrood to allow them to campaign in the referendum for the final four weeks.

So they will be out on your high streets, knocking on your doors, posing for endless selfies with activists and making themselves seen and heard.

Good luck to them. I know some of them enjoy the campaign trail more than the day to day business of parliament.

They will be back at their desks on September 23 and one way or another politics should have changed for the better.

The most pleasing aspect of this referendum has been the way it has got people engaged. I haven't been anywhere recently where three or more people are gathered and the referendum hasn't been discussed.

I've met a remarkable number of people of no party affiliation who are actively campaigning for one side or the other.

And social media is awash with people who have swapped posting pictures of their cat for indyref campaign posters.

Whether it is a yes or a no vote next month that enthusiasm that people have, showing people want to create a better country, has to be maintained.

Remember when the Scottish Parliament promised a new politics, rejecting the ya-boo tribalism of Westminster?

The second Holyrood term of 2003-07 promised so much, with seven Greens, six Socialists, John Swinbourne representing the Senior Citizens Party, Dr Jean Turner campaigning for NHS patients and Margo McDonald and Dennis Canavan thumbing their nose at previous party bosses.

Then in 2007 and 2011 it was back to business as usual with the big parties and the tribalism they inevitably generate.

All those campaign groups that the referendum has given birth to have allowed people who don't want to join a political party, and who would, to have a voice.

That public participation can continue after September and hopefully it will.

You don't need to be involved in party politics to be involved in political debate and no-one should feel intimidated into exclusion thinking others have more knowledge: often they don't.

You don't need to be in a party to get elected to Holyrood. Dr Turner proved that and John Swinbourne showed pensioners can organise and get their own person in parliament outside the party system.

So, keep up the campaigning for the next four weeks and don't leave it to the party leaders and politicians. And don't stop when the votes are counted in the wee small hours of September 19.

The next few years will be even more important than the last few. Don't leave politics to the politicians. It's too important for that.