LABOUR leader Ed Miliband has claimed "separation" from the rest of the United Kingdom would not help working people in Scotland and pledged to fight "toe-to-toe" with Alex Salmond in the independence referendum campaign.

Mr Miliband claimed a "fairer, more equal and more just United Kingdom" would be best created by retaining the Union.

The Labour leader, speaking in Glasgow yesterday, said he supported Scotland as part of the UK not because he thought Scotland was "too poor or too weak to break away".

However, in the middle of the economic squeeze, he asked "what is the most urgent task facing us?"

"Putting up a border across the A1 and M74? Or the task of creating a more equal, just and fair society?"

In a speech to an audience which included businesses, care organisations and party loyalists, Mr Miliband stressed the strong commercial, economic and family links throughout the UK, highlighting his own family background as an example of his "positive vision" for the UK.

His father, a Belgian, fled to Britain in the Second World War, joined the Royal Navy and trained aboard HMS Valorious on the Forth.

Mr Miliband said: "As I was growing up, he didn't say to me I came to England and then went to Scotland. He said 'I came to Britain', the country that gave him and my mother shelter."

He argued Scotland and the UK did not have separate economies, warning that changes, if they did not happen across all of Britain, risked a "race to the bottom" where companies would locate in the area which gave them a financial advantage.

"Because our economies are as connected as they are, more people in Scotland are employed by large companies based in the rest of the UK than in Scotland," he said.

"Reform in one country and not in another would simply mean companies moving a few miles north or south to where rules are easiest for them," he claimed. "Rather than advancing fairness together, the risk is a race to the bottom on bank regulation, on wages and conditions at work."

He added: "We can make our economy work for the majority. We can make capitalism more responsible. But I tell you this, we can only do it together."

Mr Miliband evaded answering a challenge on whether he would share a pro-union platform with Prime Minister David Cameron saying it was a question for a later date.

However, he said the rules and timing of the referendum should be decided by the people of Scotland "not just Alex Salmond".

He added that while the Scottish Government's consultation asks for views on whether there should be a second referendum on "devo-max", Mr Miliband insisted the poll must be "based on one clear question that gives one clear answer".

Mr Salmond, in a speech in London last week, claimed an independent Scotland could be a "beacon for progressive opinion" for those south of the Border.

Mr Miliband said: "The best way to make this country fairer is to do it together, as one country. Alex Salmond says he wants to set a progressive example. But there is nothing progressive about dividing people with the same needs, living on the same small island."

He said Labour's case was "not some argument simply about the dangers of separatism" it was a "positive vision about how we create social justice in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom".

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: "The SNP Government have been delivering a progressive policy platform since 2007 – something New Labour failed to do in government at Westminster – and people in Scotland well understand the more powers we have, the more we can do.

"For example, independence is the only way to get Trident out of Scottish waters and deliver welfare reform which reflects Scotland's circumstances and values of fairness.

"Ed Miliband agrees with David Cameron 100% on the constitution, and Labour are increasingly converging with the Tories on the economy."