Glasgow University politics student AIDAN KERR says indyref's 45 percent base camp needs to fight to show independence is a powerful tool for economic prosperity.

For me the referendum campaign was a thrilling affair. I spent two years or so campaigning in my local area and endless hours debating the merits of independence with my friends and family. Politics in 2014 Scotland was a participative sport.

We spent two years or so campaigning - probably the longest electoral campaign in British political history - on the ground and on the airwaves, so that Scotland should be an independent country. We lost, and lost by a considerable gap.

The independence movement, which I played my part in, did not lose the referendum due to a lack of effort by supporters; we gave it our best shot. Nor did we lose by a margin of 10.6% because the two million Scots who voted no were brainwashed, servile or did not get the opportunity to hear the case for independence.

If the independence movement wishes to grow it needs to have a proper autopsy of its referendum campaign.

By September 18 2014 the Yes campaign simply did not convince at least, the very least, 50.01% of voters that the nation's economy, and as a result an individual's own standard of living, would be the same or indeed better in an independent Scotland. Many supporters of independence just reading those words and frothing at the mouth waiting to say: "But Aidan, it would be" miss the point.

It's not about what is the reality on paper of economic models and the opinions of esteemed Noble laureates - in politics it is perception that matters. For many Scots they perceived independence would be worse for the country's economy, their bank balance and their children's future.

If the campaign for independence is to move beyond the 45 percent 'base camp' as Nicola Sturgeon coined it last weekend at the SNP conference in Perth, it has to continually fight on the grounds that independence is not economically harmful, but potentially a powerful tool for economic prosperity. Do this successfully, and an independent Scotland will be there for the taking.

This transformation of public opinion will not be achieved by spending afternoons ranting about Jim Murphy being the spawn of the New Labour devil. Most Scots did not come to a conclusion on the independence debate based on tribal affiliations. They viewed the debate on simple economic terms.

That's why the widespread revulsion from SNP activists of prospective Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy should be worrisome for anyone who wishes yet to see the day that Scotland becomes independent. People's minds will not be moved by switching from straw man to straw man. Voters will be no more convinced of the economic merits of independence by revulsion of Jim Murphy than they were with similar disdain for Alistair Darling, Nick Robinson or anyone else during the referendum campaign.

Many of these more eccentric supporters of independence now carry the party card of the SNP. The SNP's 60,000+ new members now present a dilemma for Nicola Sturgeon.

Sturgeon is a first class politician who knows that if she held a referendum tomorrow the Yes camp would lose. However, do these new, more radical, independence supporters accept the political reality that the early hours of September 19 brought us?

Nicola Sturgeon faces the 2015 and 2016 elections having to appeal to No voting Scots while trying to suppress the demands of the enlarged fundamentalist wing inside the SNP. It is these same 'No' voting Scots, rooted firmly in the middle classes of Scotland, who handed the SNP power in 2007 and 2011. This is what I call the Sturgeon dilemma.

Only time will tell if Sturgeon will be able to continue to appeal to a large swathe of the two million Scots who voted No and yet keep a hold of a party in which her old guard is now outnumbered. The price of failure for Sturgeon to keep a lid on the demands for a second snap referendum would the death of any reasonable possibility of success for independence supporters.

Independence supporters should only be calling for a second independence referendum when it will be fought on favourable grounds: when independence is perceived not as a threat to the economy but as a method for creating economic prosperity.

I have no regrets campaigning in the referendum, but activism isn't for me. Like most Scots I won't be spending Saturday afternoons handing out literature or attending meetings. My jacket is now badgeless and the window posters have been rolled away.

For those that continue to roll their sleeves up, the world's media may have left but the spotlight is still on you. Ordinary Scots want a political environment where yes, the debates are robust, but one where we don't spew venom at each other (yes, that includes MSPs). 45 or 55, we're all Jock Tamson's bairns.