ALEX Salmond has urged Scots not to let the opportunity of independence "slip through our fingers", with three new polls showing the race is still too close to call at the start of the final day of campaigning.

Yes Scotland hailed the results of the latest surveys, which showed the No camp's lead over independence supporters is just four percentage points, excluding undecided voters.

Chief executive Blair Jenkins said the surveys, which showed a 52-48 gap, were "hugely encouraging". An ICM survey for The Scotsman shows a six-point narrowing of the gap from 55-45 percentage points since a similar survey for the newspaper last month.

Two others, Opinium for The Daily Telegraph and Survation for the Daily Mail, also show gains by the pro-­independence campaign.

Mr Jenkins added: "These are hugely encouraging for Yes - a six-point narrowing of the gap in the ICM poll since the last comparable poll, a four-point narrowing of the gap since the last Survation poll on Saturday and a two-point narrowing of the gap since the last Opinium poll in The Observer on Sunday, show that Yes has the momentum as we approach referendum day."

Better Together Campaign Director Blair McDougall said: "This vote will go right down to the wire. There is no room for a protest vote. If we vote to leave the UK there would be no going back, no matter what it costs us in terms of bigger cuts, higher prices and fewer jobs."

Meanwhile, the latest poll of polls produced by Strathclyde University politics professor John Curtice has the No camp's lead over Yes unchanged at 51-49.

As both camps prepare to hold final-day rallies in Glasgow, the First Minister issued a personal message to voters, saying that after more than two years of intense campaigning the talking was all but over.

"What's left is just us," he declared. "The people who live and work here. The only people with a vote. The people who matter. The people who for a few precious hours during polling day hold sovereignty, power, authority in their hands. It's the greatest, most empowering moment any of us will ever have. Scotland's future; our country in our hands."

Mr Salmond, who tonight is due to give his last clarion call to Yes activists at Perth Concert Hall, insisted tomorrow's vote was not about him, the SNP, Labour or the Conservatives but about the voters, their hopes and ambitions.

He added: "It's about taking your country's future into your hands. Don't let this opportunity slip through our fingers. Don't let them tell us we can't. Let's do this."

In Edinburgh yesterday, the heat of the campaign reached boiling point as Yes and No campaigners clashed during a visit by Ed Miliband.

The chaotic scenes prompted the Labour leader to claim the Yes campaign had an "ugly side" as he was mobbed during a visit to the St James Shopping Centre in the capital.

Chants of "Vote Yes" and "You're a liar" competed with chants of "Vote No" as shoppers were jostled and pushed aside.

Planned media interviews had to be abandoned and Mr Miliband was eventually escorted out of a rear exit.

Meanwhile, both sides seized on a pledge by the three main Westminster parties to devolve more powers to ­Holyrood. Signed by Mr Miliband, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, it also ­promised a fair sharing of UK resources and preservation of the Barnett funding formula.

Better Together insisted the three leaders' vow was "a vision around which Scotland can unite". But Mr Salmond dismissed it as a "last-minute desperate offer of nothing".

At Westminster, the beginnings of a Tory backlash was already emerging. Conservative backbencher Christopher Chope made clear he would vote against a devo-max package for Scotland unless there was a wider look at the balance of powers across the UK.

Rob Wilson, his Tory colleague, tweeted: "England will not accept another downgrading for devo-max. Already two classes of MP, where Scots vote on Eng matters but we can't on Scots!"

Earlier in his final campaign speech in Clydebank, Gordon Brown pleaded with Scots not to break up the United Kingdom, claiming a Yes vote would lead to a "messy, expensive and difficult divorce".

In a passionate address, the former Labour Prime Minister claimed a vote for independence would mean Scotland would no longer be able to use the pound and one million jobs linked to the Union would be put at risk.

He argued being part of the Union was about "sharing, solidarity and co-operation" and called on Scots to support the "patriotic vision of Scotland" remaining within it.

Mr Brown also insisted he had "nailed the SNP lie" on NHS spending, saying the "biggest threat" to it was the Scottish Government's decision not to pass on the extra money it had from the Treasury.

His former UK Government colleague Alistair Darling, the Better Together leader, accused the SNP administration of deceit after he claimed a leak of secret papers showed it was planning to cut NHS spending by up to £450 million.

"I find that quite appalling after all the things they have been saying about the health service, all these scare stories and all the time they have known that these cuts were coming along but we weren't going to be told about it until after the polls close," said the former Chancellor.

But the FM insisted the No camp's allegations were "absolutely untrue" and the figures being quoted referred not to cuts but to efficiency savings that would be ploughed back into Scotland's health service.