As we approach the business end of the referendum campaign things are getting bigger. The Better Together team has just doubled in size, we have moved in to a new campaign headquarters that will see us through until September and our army of activists is growing as the number of campaign events increase. It’s game on.

And as our campaign gets bigger, so do the interventions; the big guns are making their presence felt in this historic debate more and more. Last week former prime minister Gordon Brown made his first speech under the Better Together banner. As a hugely respected and influential figure in this debate what he has to say holds a lot of weight with Scots. Brown cast the debate not as Scotland v Britain, Scotland v England or even Alex Salmond v David Cameron. Rightly, he made the case that this debate is a choice about the best future for us, the Scottish people. That future is one where we celebrate our distinct culture and institutions as a nation but also embrace the things that are great about being part of something bigger: security in old age; the pooling and sharing of resources; and more jobs for Scots.

Then at the end of last week the entire shadow cabinet met in Glasgow’s east end to make the Labour case for our place in the United Kingdom. Ed Miliband and his shadow cabinet colleagues echoed many of the things Brown had said but also articulated how a Labour government can deliver social justice right across the UK, particularly by cracking down on zero-hour contracts.

This case for working together to ensure a fairer future for all citizens in the UK is one that I passionately believe in and made me think of the theme of the first article I ever wrote for Progress.  Back when I was Labour Students national secretary, our members chose a living wage campaign to be our priority campaign. But the campaign was not aimed at student workers; rather it was a campaign to ensure a living wage for cleaners at universities and colleges across the UK. The first big win for our campaign came at Manchester University where the Labour Student campaigners had developed a number of strategies along the way. Following their victory, those Manchester campaigners came and shared their experience with other Labour Students from right across the UK.  By sharing skills and experience and by working together we were able to win a living wage for cleaners at universities here in Scotland and universities across the rest of the UK.

This is my experience and my example of the strength that comes from working together and countless others in our campaign will have their own. For me, it is at the heart of why Labour’s place in the campaign for a strong Scotland in the UK is the right one and why I am proud that trade unions like Community, GMB, NUM, Aslef, CWU and Usdaw are campaigning for a no vote.

It is my experience of campaigning and making change with like-minded people from across the UK that made me want to campaign for our place in the UK. I have seen what working together can deliver and to all those who have had the same experience and agree we can deliver change together I urge you to join me.

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Ross MacRae is communications officer at the Better Together campaign and writes the Better Together column for Progress. He tweets @RossMacRae

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Photo: Rev Stan